15 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

Publishing house Taschen (website) has reissued Blaeu's "Atlas Maior" of 1665

More information: here

Only 150 euro's... I want one...

[Kartograph]

The former curator of the Wiener Staatsbibliothek was my history of cartography professor...he was magnificent. And he took us out one session to show us some of the most interesting maps in the collection of the Preußische Staatsbibliothek were he worked then...and he talked more than an hour only about the Bleau Atlas

I am with Hans, I want one of those too!

@Hans isn´t it great when two thing somone likes (favorite time in history/beautiful maps) merge in such a convienient way?

Regards,

Andreas

[DaveB]

Thanks for posting this!

I want one, too.

Looks like it has a number of foldout pages.

[Kartograph]

I thumbed through it yesterday:

Size is right, colour is perfect.
Several fold-out maps, mostly with enlarged portions, for example paris. Didn´t like all of them. All backside texts are there in several languages.

All in all it looks awesome and comes in a handy & sturdy carrying box.
But I don´t need the foldout parts.

Regards,

Andreas

[Hans van der Maarel]

Andreas,

I would assume the fold-outs are necessary due to the dimensions of the original atlas and the modern-day requirement of it being small enough to carry around *without* a big fleet of trucks... (like the Encyclopedia Galactica...)

What about the languages. English and German, obviously. Dutch as well perhaps?

[Kartograph]

French as well. I don´t remember seeing Dutch, but I can check again next tuesday, If you can wait this long. The original language was retained, so if the Vienna one was dutch so will be the reprint.

Regarding the size: When I had a look at an original Bleau, it was spread over several volumes, but the book size wasn´t much larger than the reprint. As the fold out maps looked enlarged and cut on the sides, I assume they are not part of the original, just a "gimmick". I´d guess that all the maps from the original I saw would fit into a single modern volume because of paper size and double sided printing.
There were several maps which were smaller than the original. I will check again and report.

Regards,

Andreas

[Hans van der Maarel]

Seeing that it's compiled by a Dutch person, I would expect the text to be available in Dutch Not that I have a problem with reading it in English though.

[Kartograph]

Hans,

As far as I know there are latin editions of the atlas maior. That´s why I´m unsure about Dutch.

Regards,

Andreas

[Hans van der Maarel]

Well, I meant the modern compiler actually. I'm pretty sure the original was mainly in latin.

[Kartograph]

Wow, a two tiered misunderstanding
What makes me wonder, is that the reprint is sold in the walmart versions of bookstores (Don´t think Dalton´s it´s much worse, heaps of books which are looked at and then tossed back onto the heap by the customers) here. Most of the graphics stuff by Taschen is also, but at greatly reduced price and then when it´s not the most recent edition anymore. But they sell the reprint through the same stores, although it´s to large to be tossed around...

BTW can we use the maps in there for free? Bleau surely won´t sue us anymore So does anybody know about copyrights of old maps?

Regards,

Andreas

[Martin Gamache]

BTW can we use the maps in there for free? Bleau surely won´t sue us anymore :rolleyes:  So does anybody know about copyrights of old maps?

Regards,

Andreas

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

My wife the image copyright expert says two things.

1. If you go to the source image you can do what you want, scan, copy etc...it is out of copyright (at least according to US law)

2. Taschen probably owns the rights to the images in their book, so you probably cant scan from their book....But these are the kinds of things that are still vague in this new digital era. Someone using scanned images from the book for teaching would probably be OK. For commercial purposes????


mg

[Dennis McClendon]

Taschen published three editions to cover various languages:

Dutch: 3-8228-4680-5 (October 2005)
English/French/German: 3-8228-3125-5 (August 2005)
Italian/Spanish/Portuguese: 3-8228-4155-2 (October 2005)

[woneil]

My wife the image copyright expert says two things.

1. If you go to the source image you can do what you want, scan, copy etc...it is out of copyright (at least according to US law)

2. Taschen probably owns the rights to the images in their book, so you probably cant scan from their book....But these are the kinds of things that are still vague in this new digital era. Someone using scanned images from the book for teaching would probably be OK. For commercial purposes????

I'm not an attorney, but do have business reasons to be familiar with the law of copyright, and I have a comment:

The U.S. law on copyright is somewhat unique, even though we have (at last) adhered to the Berne Convention, owning to our Constitutional provisions regarding copyright. In Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), the Supreme Court held that under the Constitution, in the United States it is the case that, "copyright rewards originality, not effort." Unless Taschen added something genuinely original to the images in the course of republication, it is very doubtful that U.S. courts would hold that it has copyright protection for them.

As a practical matter, if someone were to publish images of the maps in the U.S. then Taschen could try to sue for copyright infringement if it wished to. It is unlikely, as I see it, that the U.S. courts would afford Taschen any relief (owing to the case cited above), but Taschen might try some novel (or not-so novel) line of argument, if they thought it somehow worth the expense of bringing litigation.

Since all this is based on an American Constitutional provision, it has no relevance to what might happen in other countries.

[Hans van der Maarel]

The U.S. law on copyright is somewhat unique, even though we have (at last) adhered to the Berne Convention, owning to our Constitutional provisions regarding copyright. In Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Tel. Serv. Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), the Supreme Court held that under the Constitution, in the United States it is the case that, "copyright rewards originality, not effort." Unless Taschen added something genuinely original to the images in the course of republication, it is very doubtful that U.S. courts would hold that it has copyright protection for them.

Hmmm... interesting. I'm assuming that the descriptive text that is added next to the maps is the "genuinely original" bit of Taschen's publication.

On a slightly, but only barely, related note, there's still many laws and regulations that need to catch up on the digital age...

[Kartograph]

On a slightly, but only barely, related note, there's still many laws and regulations that need to catch up on the digital age...

Don´t fear, Hans, for we have our wonderfully fast moving and effective European Union preparing us for the future...

But for real, in Germany they passed several laws only because of ebay (isn´t that something!). And IP Rights in the electronic age are a BIG concern for the all-beloved WTO. So maybe all will be well in the future...