Am 24.11.2015 um 02:31 schrieb Mike Horvath:

> I may just use those instead. But are they copyrighted?


(Disclaimer: IANAL. No guarantee for the correctness of the following
statements.)


If you want data free of copyright issues, look at the following papers:

http://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/31/jresv31n2p55_A1b.pdf
http://www.rit-mcsl.org/MunsellRenotation/MunsellRe-renotations.pdf

Both papers, published in the U.S. in 1943 and 1969 respectively, don't
carry any copyright notice, so according to
https://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm they should be
in the public domain (first published in the U.S., in the years
1923-1977, without a copyright notice).

Note that the 1943 paper probably describes the original, non-renotated
Munsell colours, while the 1969 paper describes a different re-notation,
so neither matches the commonly used renotated Munsell colours.


Having said that, it also seems worth taking a closer look at the 1943
renotation article's copyright status:

Titled "Final Report of the O.S.A. Subcommittee on the Spacing of the
Munsell Colors", and published in the "Journal of the Optical Society of
America" in 1943, the OSA Publishing claims it to be (C) 1943 Optical
Society of America, so I presume there's a copyright notice in the paper
itself.

However, copyrights to works first published in the U.S. in the years
1923 to 1963 have all expired after 28 years, *if* they haven't been
explicitly renewed in their 28th year; renewal is only possible through
registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. Thus, for the 1943's
paper's copyright to still be valid, it would have to have been
registered for renewal somewhere between 1970 and 1971, and should thus
appear in the Copyright Office's official archives for those years, or
1972 the latest.

Now guess what: Having had a quick look at scans of the 1970-1972
archives, it seems that neither the "Journal of the Optical Society of
America" in general, nor the article "Final Report of the O.S.A.
Subcommittee on the Spacing of the Munsell Colors", have been registered
for copyright renewal in those years.

Thus, if my observations are correct, then the 1943 renotation paper is
in the public domain by now, too.


This would also have implications for the data files: Insofar as they
are compilations of xyY colour coordinates from the 1943 renotation
paper, their contents should be free for re-distribution in different
formats (such as a POV-Ray include file), as -- quoting from the U.S.
Copyright Office's publucation at http://copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf:

"The copyright in a compilation of data extends only to the
selection, coordination or arrangement of the materials or
data, but not to the data itself."

Note however that it would be prudent to verify that the data in the
files is in fact identical to the data in the paper, and doesn't contain
any additional data points. Unfortunately, as mentioned already, the
1943 renotation paper is closely guarded and doesn't appear to be
available for free anywhere, so that would mean you'd have to buy the
paper first.

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