The Golden Chain of Homer

Text, Images, and Rights

The German work published in 1723 is in the public domain. Wellcome Collection identifies its digitized copy with the Public Domain Mark and states that the work may be used for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. An independent translation and new editorial material can therefore be prepared from that historical source. The source credit for any reproduced page or image should identify the actual copy used. The copyright status and stated use conditions of each supplied reproduction are checked separately when selecting production files.

Later translations, introductions, annotations, illustrations, and other original additions have their own histories and rights. Their presence in an edition of an old work does not transfer their wording into the public domain. Under United States law, copyright in a derivative work extends to the author's new contribution, rather than conferring ownership of the pre-existing material. This edition's translation and commentary are independently prepared; bibliographical references to earlier editions acknowledge their place in the work's reception without treating their contents as licensed for reproduction.

The age of a manuscript's author does not by itself establish that every later publication of that manuscript is cleared for reuse. In particular, United States law can preserve protection through 2047 for qualifying pre-1978 material first published between 1978 and 2002. The 1983 Bacstrom volume described in the bibliography as taken from an unpublished manuscript therefore requires investigation of the particular passages and earlier publication witnesses before reuse. This qualification does not affect the public-domain status of the German text printed in 1723.