Originally Posted by gideongallery

care to explain why the first printing has a copyright notice then



the brothers grim did just retell the old stories the COMBINED multiple versions into a single unique story. That why it was worthy of being copyright. The original stories that the merged were public domain. That what allowed them to merge them to derive new copyrighted works.

disney was able to make a movie based on the work because it became public domain after the copyright expired



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ki..._I_A_ 001.jpg


if public domain get reverse and put back into the copyright monopoly then the permutation of combined elements from the original story that was the brother grim version would be illegal to derive from.

That would most certainly effect disney snow white which used the key elements (mirror, dwarfs, poison apple, sleep) that grim used.

for the record the snow white fairy tale which featured the apple that grims brother used as the apple was cursed not poisoned, snow white choked to death, and the robbers (not dwarfs) used her death to rally the peasents to over throw the evil queen and killed her.