Can a library forbid me to make copies of un-copyrighted material? There is a book published in 1878 (i.e. not copyrighted anymore) which is currently not available in the public domain. I would like to bring it into the public domain by making a scan of it and upload it to e.g. archive.org. However, the only physical copy I can get of it is in my university library (to which I have lawful access). My university (in the UK) has this policy where "you are not allowed to make a scan of more than one chapter or 5% of the book". This is clearly relevant for books which are still under copyright. But I wonder whether this is also valid for books without copyright. You might think this is an issue specific to the university regulations and the library's terms of services, and be quick to suggest "ask your university". But the point is broader. Can a provider of material set up a set of terms and services that in effect denies my capacity to bring un-copyrighted material into the public domain? I am an frequent user of archive.org and there you find many un-copyrighted books that were scanned from a copy of a university's library. This does not necessarily goes into my favour, but makes me suggest I could be entitled to do so too, even without explicit permission from the library.
More generally, the university gets to set whatever rules it wants, unless there is a law limiting what it can do. For example, in the US a government university (qua arm of government) cannot require you to have a particular religion or profess a particular creed, but a private one can. An employer could require you to be in your office from 9 to 5, even though it is legal to not be in an office from 9 to 5. The general principle is that the institution can set its own rules for operation, unless those rules violate the law. Generally, the owner of property has the right to say how it can be used. It is quite common for universities to have variable policies regarding access to their books (e.g. "anybody can walk in and do things with the volumes, which are out in the open, except they have to have borrower's permission to take it out of the building" to "you cannot enter at all, and must have special permission to inspect the book -- nobody can take the books out of the building"). My experience is that UK libraries have a tighter rein on their holdings than do US universities (the sampling problem here is non-trivial). In some cases, the absolute control of the property owner is somewhat overridden by law, especially if the institution is a state-run university (not in the UK). Another possibility is that access to books is a contractual right (some kind of "terms of service" that you and they are bound to). Even in the case of US state universities, I cannot imagine a government having a law declaring the right to copy books to be such a fundamental right that a university cannot deny you that right. The most likely scenario for enforcement is as a contractual matter. A complete analysis of the relationship between the individual and the institution would be way too broad for here, but here is a sample of the questions that could arise. What is the source of your right to access books? Perhaps you are employed as a faculty person: do you have a contract? Can you be fired for breaking rules: are there any limits on what acts can lead to firing? What procedures if any are specified for termination, and what avenue of internal appeal exist? The government would not overrule the institution's decision unless they didn't follow the contractually-governed procedures for termination. Apart from the legal question, a perfectly coherent reason to prohibit scanning books whose copyright has expired is that the act of scanning them may damage the book.
Most of the works available on Libgen are illegal: they have infringed copyright by putting copies there. Any copying of a protected work, done without permission of the copyright owner, is copyright infringement. That includes downloading from libgen.
There is something wrong-sounding about that claim. Owning a thing (such as a book) means that you can dispose of it however you want. If it is a physical book, then unless this is a book of top secret classified information, the US government has no control over the item, nor does the copyright holder have any right to prevent you from giving away your copy. Electronic books, however, are another matter, since often you don't buy such books, you buy a license to use the book (like a software license). The license terms of an electronic book could be subject to various controls, and the license might be non-transferable. The underlying logic of this is that under the doctrine of first sale, you are allowed to do whatever you want with intellectual property that you buy, and therefore to restrict re-distribution of electronic IP, software especially is typically not itself sold, and just the permission to use it is. If this is an electronic book, the copyright holder would be able (though not necessarily willing) to permit you to transfer your copy to someone else. Of course you can't give a copy to two people unless you have two licenses.
You cannot create derivative works without permission of the copyright holder (even if you create it and keep it to yourself). Further, you cannot distribute derivative works without permission of the copyright holder. That's a general principle that always applies. Since there is a license, you need to read that license carefully and determine under which conditions you have permission to create derivative works, and to distribute them. Your book would be considered a derivative work. In some situations, like commenting on a work, parody and some others, you would have a defense if you are quoting tiny parts of the work. But generally, if you find it unfair that your 200 page needs to be licensed because you used two pages from an open source source, you either do without those two pages, or you find the author and ask for permission under a different license. Note that facts are not copyrightable. So if the wikipedia page contains facts and isn't just made up, you can read it ten times, memorise all the facts, and maybe tell the facts to someone who you pay to write a similar article.
Depending on your jurisdiction, such lists may be protected, but not by copyright. For example, in Germany there was a court decision that scanning all the country’s phone books and selling them on CD constituted “unfair competition” and was illegal, while hiring 1000 typists who would manually type in all this information would not be. Databases are protected in many jurisdictions, and a list of the 1000 most commonly used English words could reasonably be called a database.
What you're describing is generally permissible in the United States. The photographer has copyright in the photograph itself, not in the items photographed. This means that they have copyright in the way that they composed the photograph -- what background they placed it against, lighting, camera placement, etc. -- but not in the ancient manuscript. If you are strictly transcribing the text of the script, you're not infringing on anything that's copyrighted. If you make a sketch, there's more potential for infringement, but I suspect that you would not be working to faithfully copy the angles of the shadows as much as you would working to faithfully copy the image and condition of the artifact. Even if you were, calling that a copyright infringement would require that the image truly be copyrighted, and I'm not 100 percent convinced that they would be. Copyright is only available to original works of authorship, and that means that the author has to make some meaningful efforts to create something new out of the copyrighted elements discussed above. But what has the photographer done in that picture of the Coronation Oath? It appears that they've photographed the book head-on, as it's displayed by the museum, with lighting as provided by the museum, in an effort to recreate the display one would see while visiting the museum. Is that really sufficiently "original" to merit copyright protection that could be invoked to prevent someone from drawing a duplicate? I doubt it. But that picture of the Ge'ez book may be different. Someone appears to have grabbed the book, opened it up under weird lighting, kept their hands in the photograph, and otherwise actually composed a photograph that may not be particularly artistic, but is nonetheless difficult enough to duplicate that it can be considered original. So let's be generous to the copyright trolls and assume that the sketch you're imagining is protected. Even then, that only raises the question of whether the copy is a fair use. You haven't said anything about how the hypothetical copier would be using these materials, but I have a hunch that the idea isn't to launch a multimillion dollar merchandising enterprise. If the idea is more academic or cultural, you'd have a better claim to fair use. Again, you can review this fair-use explainer to get a better idea.
That means that a person cannot put a new cover or binding on a book, and then resell it or lend it, unless permission is obtained from the publisher. This has the effect of prohibiting libraries, which need to rebind most books, from carrying the book without the publisher's permission. This condition did not apply in the US, because under the US Law's First Sale Doctrine, the seller cannot impose such conditions on the buyer. The very standardize wording was, I think, once part of the Net book Agreement (NBA) used by Penguin and other UK-based publishers on sales in the UK and the Commonwealth. You will find it on many used books from such publishers. I believe the main aim was to prohibit discount resellers of used books, and to prohibit sale of "stripped books" (reported to the publisher as "unsold and destroyed"). I believe that this is no longer in effect, but I am not sure. The NBA was dissolved in 1995.
No, John may not lawfully publish such a book in such a way What John wants to do is not lawful. It would infringe on the copyright on both the 1940 original, and on the 1955 translation. Both of those are still in copyright under the laws of France, the UK, and the US. Someone owns those copyrights: some person or business or other entity. If the owner has no legal heirs, in most jurisdictions the property escheats to the government (in the US to the state government). In the case of a company, its assets will be sold or handed over to some entity. But they will not become ownerless, any more than real estate will become ownerless when the owner dies or the owning company is dissolved. It is possible that the owner does not realize that s/he owns these rights. But if John publishes his book, then owner might then realize the rights that s/he holds. The owner could demand payment, or sue for damages. Under US law the damages could include any economic loss that the owner has incurred plus any profits that John or his publisher have made. John and his publisher would both be liable for these damages. As a result, no publisher is likely to be willing to publish John's book. If John self-publishers, he incurs the risk of such demands and suit. In some countries (such as the UK) there are legal procedures fore dealing with such &quot;orphan works&quot;. In those countries one can register with a government agency, and obtain permission to use the work after a search has revealed no owner, paying a rate set by law. But there is no such provision in the US. There, John must either not publish, or gamble that no owner will appear and make demands he cannot afford to meet.