From: Richard Gottlieb <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, Mar 7, 2014 at 11:05 AM

Thanks to all. I had a set of the printed work for years, but have
lost track of them after multiple moves.

Somewhat surprised that Feynman gave up the copyright. But it was a
different time.

RG

*******

From: Natsuko Nicholls
Sent: Friday, March 07, 2014 10:36 AM
To: [log in to unmask] ; [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fwd: Locking down the Feynman Lectures website?

Below is the response from Jim Ottaviani, the author of Feynman, to
the discussion re. Locking down the Feynman Lectures website?

I forwarded your message to Jim and I am simply relaying back Jim's
response, since he said he does not subscribe this listserv.

----
Jim Ottaviani says:

I'm not currently a subscriber, but you can post it if you think it
will make for (or further) an interesting conversation.

His assumption is incorrect. I have the Addison Wesley editions, and
the copyright notice on those volumes indicates that the copyright is
Caltech's.

I'd note that since he created these courses at the request of
Caltech, and taught them there as well, it's not too surprising that
Feynman didn't make a claim for copyright at the time. I also wouldn't
be surprised that a similar situation -- such as Cambridge asking
Stephen Hawking to prepare a survey course in cosmology -- in 2014
would play out very differently than it did in the early 1960s, at
least in terms of copyright.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Richard Gottlieb <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thu, 6 Mar 2014 10:35:08 -0500

These were originally published by Addison Wesley in the 1960's.

Assume Feynman had the copyright.

Feynman ended his career teaching at Caltech.  Wonder what arrangement
allowed them to post up his content, on a free website?

Richard Gottlieb