Would it be legal to...

[Micah]

...create an online C.S. Lewis index for locating certain words/topics within his body of work? I imagine it wouldn't be if you provided the actual texts of the books in their entirety. But what if it was just like a bound Bible concordance, where it just lists verses containing whatever word you're looking for--then you have to go to the Bible itself to find the actual text? For instance, if you type in 'boots', to find that bit about the elastic side boots, it would return something like God in the Dock, p. whatever, etc. I know there are C.S. Lewis indexes commercially available in book form, but it would be handy to have such a resource online.

[Karen]

We don't need one of those, we have Sven. :) Actually, it's a good idea, and I'm pretty sure it would be legal...unless you'd be violating the copyright of the people who have already published such an index.

[Benj]

I actually had a similar idea which involved putting the entire text in a database or repository that you could search online (similar to blueletterbible.org). It would be great to be able to find some obscure quote when you can only remember one or two words. I know SQL and some Java, and I know you could make it work -- making it fast would be a more difficult challenge. By returning only snippets of Lewis's works that contain your search term, I think you could avoid copyright infringement. (Lawyers, correct me if I'm wrong, here.)

Does Dr. Zeus have access to a server that can run MySQL or SQL Server? Is there enough interest and support for this kind of development to make it worth looking into?

As an afterthought, with the Chronicles of Narnia films being released soon, might there not be more interest in Lewis's works? Perhaps the film distributors will be hosting a search engine as part of their marketing campaign. Did someone put up a search engine for Tolkien's works when Lord of the Rings was released? I can see there being more traffic to this site within nine months or so. It would be great to offer a search service to the serious Lewis fans and curiosity seekers both.

[Karen]

[john]

[Wixenstyx]

[Karen]

[Wixenstyx]

[Karen]

[Micah]

Right--I think that would be a grand idea. I think if it was just limited to the effect of a Bible concordance, where you get the reference and perhaps four or five words in a phrase to provide context, that might be OK--as long as no one could somehow access larger portions of the texts through the program.

[Micah]

The Svendex, eh? :) Maybe I'll experiment with this in my spare time--start off with just one of his smaller books, add to it bit by bit. (heh...what spare time?)

As long as the texts themselves weren't available to the program user, but were only used to initially generate the index files with concordance-style references, I think that would be legit.

[Lady Rebecca]

[Micah]

Hi, Lady Rebecca

I think shorter quotes are fine, as long as the source is referenced--but then how short is 'short', right? :)

[PurplePen]

Rule of thumb for the publishing industry: 8% or more of the whole is considered a "substantial" amount of material and needs to have permission from the copyright holder before being used in print. Unless you're talking about Children's Literature (pre-self-readers) or poetry (including song lyrics). Then more than a line or two will need permission. So... start counting up the words and do the math! :P

--Dawn

[Karen]