Royal Society Claims 1671 Copyright On Newton Letter (Copyright Law Born 29 Years Later) | Techdirt

"If you can't see that, it says: 'This journal is © 1671 The Royal Society.' Now, I knew that The Royal Society was ahead of its time, but claiming copyright in an article published 29 years before the first modern copyright law was passed in England is truly impressive. I wasn't sure whether this was some little joke on the part of The Royal Society, or whether there might be some obscure 17th century legislation that had been passed giving The Royal Society's Transactions perpetual copyright (after all, such a thing has been done before in the United Kingdom.) So I asked the Royal Society what was going on, and this is what they replied: "The copyright line will have been added by JSTOR when they digitised the manuscripts in 1999". ..."