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Project Gutenberg Threatened Over PG Australia
Jon Noring writes "Michael Hart's venerable Project Gutenberg, based in the United States, is now being threatened with a lawsuit from the estate of the long-deceased author of 'Gone With The Wind.' The threat is being made because Project Gutenberg of Australia (link not provided) has the digital text version of GWTW on its server (GWTW is Public Domain in Australia), which, according to the estate's lawyers, is downloadable from the United States. Further information, including the copy of the 'take down' letter, and some commentary, is given at TeleRead. It is likely the threat is legally meritless, yet it is troubling, showing how online repositories of public domain works may be impacted by threats from other countries where the works are still covered under copyright."
Next week the japanese government will start issuing cease and desists for porn sites in the US for showing content against their laws.
"The United States has no right, no desire, and no intention to impose our form of government on anyone else." - Bush 05
The car that is parked in a street is "steelable".
I severely doubt this would fly in a court room. Australian law says it's public domain and it's hosted in an Australian server. Now, of course, the problem is that the copyright holder is aiming at "winning" by hoping the GP guys won't fight over it.
Perhaps Australian politicians like to please the US (as I've read in comments by aussies in some internet boards, no idea if that's the case), but I'd be very surprised if the judges are going to play along nicely when someone tries to push their country laws over their own.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
The threat is completely meritless indeed. Its illegal to post nazi propaganda in Germany yet as an American citizen I can post it with no worries from Germany.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
In TFA it was stated that the author died in 1949, international copyright expired in 1999, but US copyright (thanks to Bono act) will expire in 2019 or never (whichever has deeper pockets).
I think they should extend it back indefinitely and then I'm going to prove that I'm the only living heir of the estate of Shakespeare
:-)
No need for steps 1 and 2 just proceed to
3. Profit!
During the Olympics, North America ip addresses were blocked from watching much of what was available to Europeans. This was done so that NBC could retain there rights. This seems to be something that could easily be considered for links to works that are not 'legal' everywhere.
. html
The August 17th article on this pages discusses this.
http://ice.citizenlab.org/archives/2004_08
You must delete the work within 24 hours of downloading. Seeesh, you'd think that a reader of /. would know that by now.
AUSTRALIA, damnit! AUSTRALIA! Not Austria! We're two completely different countries, on virtually the opposite side of the globe to each other!
"And, if you're in Australia..."
Now, if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go and see if that Swiss Bikini-team is still hiring. I'm so tired of working in the Swedish Army Knife factory...
What is stupid is confusing Australian and Austria. It is about as logical as confusing Americans with the Amish.
In America, it's the sender, not the reciever, who is guilty of copyright infringement. If I make a dub of a DVD and give it away, I am breaking copyright law, not the person I gave it to. Now, if someone from a foreign county is doing the sending legally, then who do you sue?
Mabye I'm wrong or pointing out canadian law or something, but still, it's pretty funny. They can't do a damn thing about it, heh.
Candy-Coated Knowledge
...because the site is in Australia, not Austria...? =P
I'm in international waters right now, accessing the internet via a company server in the US, how to deal?
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
I can just see the warez crowd racing to download GWTW and other works, just because you can get a copy while its still legal.
..
.. can I swap you a copy of GWTW for a Moby Dick???
And then later on
Psst
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Very bad precedent; once you start doing that, you will soon find you are obliged to, and are liable if you don't. And anyway, as we all know, proxies make it easy to circumvent. If anything, just use the same kind of disclaimer that they have on cryptography pages: "If you are Osama bin Laden you are not allowed to look at his."
This will mean works that are now in the 50-70 year period after the death of the creator will be back under copyright. :-(
That and we'll all start enjoying the US's wonderful software patents...
Don't expect Project Gutenberg to back down on this. They were the ones who, with the help of Lawrence Lessig and the EFF, filed suit to have the Sonny Bono Perpetual Copyright Act struck down as failing the "limited times" clause in the US Constitution. Sadly, they lost that case. But it should illustrate that PG does not take $#!t like this lying down. Expect a fight.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
So PGA, an australian entity(!), is subject to U.S. copyright law and jurisdiction? Wouldn't that also mean, that australian copyright law is applicable to U.S. entities, or is the U.S. the only country in the world who can dictate their laws unto others?
I would say the distinction would be that PG is simply making the text available. They are not "pushing" it to other countries per se, they are simply making it available to download. As someone mentioned above, you should be able to post Nazi related material on your website with no fear of action by French or German governments.
If on the other hand I emailed Nazi related material to a French or German person, perhaps there would be grounds for a cease and desist order. Just making it available to those users to ignore if they want to abide by the law in their own country shouldn't be.
I guess it is also comparable (although it's the other way round) to the posting of encryption technology on US websites. I would argue (although IANAL as mentioned previously) that it should not be the responsibility of the webmaster to enforce US export law in regards to countries like Syria and North Korea since this is almost impossible to do. If it was like this you would have to check everything you post just in case there was an obscure law relating to giving material to foreign nationals of any country (since every country on earth has the potential to read your site).
From the sounds of it the Stephens Mitchell Trusts sound like litigious bastards anyway.
"And then I visited Wikipedia
Hmm. At the risk of committing thoughtcrime, here is the links:
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200161.zip
Ads? What ads?
You'll find the illegal contraband on this page.
And here are some nyud.net cachelinks to the ebook in question:
Margaret MITCHELL (1900-1949)
Please spread this work far and wide. Also remember that this is the same greedy estate that killed off a great derivative work entitled The Wind Done Gone . This sort of extreme Intellectual Property protectionism is counter-productive to the intent of copyright, and we must put a stop to it.
(posted anonymously to preempt karma-whoring whiners.)
Securing our nation's "digital boarders" to prevent American-hating foreigners from terrorizing dead artists by cutting into their profits.
Seriously, the IP address blocks that went on during the Athens Olympics (US IPs were blocked from live streams so that NBC could time-shift to our primetime) are evidence that this will become something of an issue (though not necessarily in the 2008 election). Protectionism extends beyond tarrifs on steel. Protecting rights is good, but protecting business models is bad. Where to draw the line? It seems that global communication and information technologies do not fit the nation-state model of government.
Something somewhere has to give. During the last wave of "globalization" (European colonization), it was native peoples who got trounced. Who gets it this time?
And we all know how well this method works at keeping the little ones out of the porn sites. "Oh golly gee! The operators of this fine web site dealing in adult wares do not wish those of us with few years to see what is contained within! I had best comply or risk substantial consequences to myself, my family, and the operator of this grand establishment!"
Yeah, the whole thing is silly. Who wants to read Gone With The Wind anyways?
This is defintely a case where the services of Sealand and their hosting services would be useful. It's sickening to see how these corporate bandits can lift stories from the wealth of the public domain, exploit them, then not ever have to contribute back their own derived works (think Disney, Snow White, etc).
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
With the Aus-US Free Trade Agreement and the extended copyright terms it has brought with it, this will most likely be a serious issue for PG within a few months once the FTA is legislated.
Of course, this is only one of numerous copyright violations the FTA will introduce for PG, but you're not going to find any politicians who give a damn about it since the election is over.
There is (From the GWTW Ebook):
We really do want to see this sort of thing thrown out of court immediately.
Unfortunately we just re-elected our conservative US-Loving government, who will gladly feed us to a pack of dogs if the US asked for it. John Howard is completely spineless.
Fuck it makes me made that the dick heads of this country voted them in again.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
Maybe easy to do, but why do it? Why should anyone in Australia concern themselves with the laws of another nation?
2^5
Are here
My pics.
So if I find a country that has very lax copyright laws or none at all, can I make there a ftp-server?
Upload games, movies, music and, ok, texts (like Project Gutenberg)... free for everybody to download?
There must be countries like this, no? Maybe some small island...
I don't need a signature.
I'm interested to know what would happen to PG Australia once the free trade agreement comes along. Since we're going to most probably adopt US Copyright laws will PG Australia have to delete twenty years of material off their servers? Also will all the people who downloaded the material have to delete the copies?
Taken from Douglas Adams' unfinished Novel/compilation of essays: "Salmon of Doubt."
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
...and for some reason, if try to access George Bush's campaign web site from outside the US, you get Access Denied.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries Aricle I Section 8
I glanced over the wikipedia article on the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, and it looks like Bono were working to protect the hugely profitable characters and works, but without thinking about other works, such as all those crap films that wind up in the $2 bin after two years.
I think that perhaps what is needed is language giving copyrights extensions but with a high fee(much more than the $25 it currently cost to get a copyright), that way items that have been forgotten about or no current holder intrest can pass into public domain.
This isn't fully thought out, but a blanket extension approaching perpetuity should probably be denied by the Supreme Court. Heirs rights are an interesting issue, but corporations can be around forever. Therefore, if you say for the "Authors lifetime" and you define the corporation as the author the copyright WILL NEVER EXPIRE. This ramble left open for riddiclue, but at least I'm not trying to be funny.
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
These are the same people that brought the case againist a parody of the Gone with the Wind all the way to the Supreme Court. They can't be making that much money off Gone with the Wind, the whole estate must be devoted to paying their lawyers.
They only see what they wanna see, like the dead people in 6th Sense....Remember in the American Bizarro take on the world the following are all true:
1) Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are brothers
2) Iraq is full of WMDs
3) Torturing Human beings, killing innocents and holding prisoners in violation of the Geneva convention are all okay if you think you have a big dick.
4) The Metric system is for wimps
5) Anybody who's neither black nor white must be a terrorist.
6) India = Pakistan, Australia = Austria and there is no such country as Kazakhstan.
7) Pakistan is a liberal secular democracy which respects human rights, is responsible with it WMDs and good team player, and thus merits the purchase of F-16s and Stinger Missiles, miraculously similar to those owned by Osama Bin Laden's Men.
8) India is a place where people rid on elephants and camels. If you're not an elephant-rider or camel-fucker, then you must be a software developer who stole an American's God-given right to own an SUV.
9) Those dang Brits have corrupted "American" and speak it with funny accents, spelling and words. (Who the fuck takes a 'lift' to the 4th floor anyway?).
10) (my Favourite) It is better to be committed to your cause and completely wrong, then to support a cause and change your position on the release of new information(i.e. flip-flop).
Almost plausable but not true - I just accessed it from Japan.
I can't imagine what they are attempting to gain from this. If your dead set on reading this online you can get it with or without the help of TGP. And if your like me and dislike the eye strain of reading online, you can always go to a used book store and buy it for $2USD. In any of the above cases the estate doesn't see one cent.
The only case I'd imagine the suit has merits, to lost revenue, is as mandetory reading material for school children. Such as mass purchases by schools for the students (who should be buying it used anyway, but that's not relevent here). In that case there really just gouging schools. Way to go!
Can anyone else think of a ligitimate reason why this law suit should matter to the estate holders?
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I got access denied right now, from Denmark.
At a Vienna train station, they sell T-shirts with a picture of an orange road warning sign with a Kangaroo on it (you Aussies will know what I mean).
In large text above and below the picture are the words:
"There are no Kangaroos in Austria!!"
This is entirely for the benefit of visiting Americans who are apparently unaware that Australia is not actually a small country next to Germany.... :-)
Not accessable from .edu.au though...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Their case is based on the wholly ridiculous assumption that one country's laws apply in all countries. All they need to do is find a country with decent anti-barratry laws (there must be one somewhere!) and threaten to counter-sue under their laws.
If creating a world-wide infinte copyright extension was as easy as finding just one country that would pass a law like that, do these people really think that Disney would have bothered buying their own senator and bribing the government do it in America?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
An interesting variation would be some country deciding that *all* copyright lasts for 90 years, and allowing publishers *there* to sue the US and rest of the world for infrigement everytime a public domain text is posted elsewhere. This the exact symmetry of the US vs rest of world situation.
This is not a signature.
Why is this a nightmare? It looks like a perfect utopia for Free Software. Stallman created the GPL to use copyright against itself. If copyright become essentially unenforceable, creating an enviroment in which code can be integrated into communally developed projects without problems, there would be no need for the GPL anymore and Free Software would triumph.
I also am in Japan but get the access denied page. I guess it depends how reliably the website detects your IP's geolocation.
Of course you can always check out the google cache if you're desperate.
If the lawyers in the US have a problem with Australians distributing content which is public domain in Autralia, but not in the US, I suggest they find a way to block those internet sites in their end... Sort of a "Great Firewall of the US". Honestly I can't see why an Australian would even care and the American part of the Gutenberg project hasn't done anything illegal. If I remember correctly it actually says in the top of each fil you download from the Gutenberg Project, that you should check your local copyright law, I would say that they done all they need to do.
Maybe I should start sueing American companies for violating Danish enviromental laws?
BULLSHIT!
BULLSHIT!
BULLSHIT!
BULLSHIT!
BULLSHIT!
BULLSHIT!
BULLSHIT!
BULLSHIT!
http://www.gutenberg.net.au/ is not under US jurisdiction? It's under australian jurisdiction.
You can see at the adress that you are in an other "country".
If the US are so eager to push their laws into other countries maybe they should join the International Crime Court [ICC] and not avoid it like some vampires the sunlight! I think the ROI at WIPO is better than at the ICC!
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
I just got "access denied" from my office and home machines in the UK. Looks like it's down to the quality of the geo-location software, as another poster suggested.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
The letter says "there is nothing to prevent any U.S. user from simply downloading GWTW from the Web Site. Indeed, we were able to do so easily."
Yes there is! There's a warning that some works may not be out of copyrighyt outside of Australia. And they're relying on their users to be honest law abiding citizens.
PGA should be highly offended that the GWTW estate considers their users tro be a bunch of criminals.
It is blocked from Norway. Besides, Netcraft confirms: GWBush is dying. ;-)
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
It was an optical read error! Gutenburg conjures up german speaking nations to me, and I was skim reading and well, the same applies.
Except the read through would be:
"Strewth mate, if yer not a bona-fide aussie then maybe you wanna go walkabout this arvo, because bang my wallaby, shielas gone and put some book of sorts on this interweb site, and you some limey outback wanderer from the creek trying to get it right? have a tinny and push off!"
Needs some work. creative commons license.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
or collect call to (212) 980-0120
So everyone that reads the message should call collect to let them know they recieved the e-mail in error?
In 2002, the Australian High Court in Dow Jones & Company Inc. v Gutnick http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/2002/56 .html
http://vigilant.tv/article/2544
said that an Australian defamed on a website hosted overseas could sue, and that Australian courts did have jurisdiction.
In this landmark case testing the limits of legal jurisdiction in the Internet age, Australia's highest court clearly said that the harm was done to the Australian person defamed, despite and regardless that the material was hosted on a foreign server.
So, as Australians, we can't then turn around and say that just because it's hosted on servers in Australia, that the harm done is irrelevant to the Americans IP owners
This is a logical analysis, that doesn't take into account the very dubious merits of the Sony Bono Act. (IMHO)
Regardless of wether we personally like a law, the courts will attempt to maintain coherence of legal principle.
In this case, reducing it to mathematics ;
IF (hosted overseas) AND (harm done in Australia) = within Australian jurisdiction
then the converse must be true...
IF (hosted in Australia ) AND (harm done overseas) = within overseas jurisdiction
If the GWTW party sues and this goes to court, I would expect them to argue the jurisdictional question on the basis of Australian law, and not the merits of Sony Bono.
This way they can bring the case in Australia, seek Australian remedies, and neatly sidestep the international jurisdictional questions.
Bugger, hoisted by our own petard !
Fortunately, this one still is accessible:
:-)
www.georgewbush.org/
Well, Peter Pan is copyright in the UK *forever*. and Disney et al. have to pay the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children if they want to show their films in the UK. Interestingly, the hospital is sueing Disney in the US courts for making a prequel; a case that's on grounds about as secure as this one (i.e. not a hope)
IIRC that was one of the reasons given for introducing region coding (*spit*) to DVDs.
Copyright rules vary greatly from country to country, though lately there's been more harmonization. The general rule is that copyright lasts for X years past the author's death or Y years in absolute terms if the author is in fact a corporation. The values for X and Y vary by country. Even within a country they can vary depending on when the work was created and what copyright legislation was in effect at the time. This makes it extremely difficult to figure out which works are in the public domain or not. Sometimes things ended up in the public domain because they weren't properly declared. But with the Berne convention in force over most of the world, you can't assume that no copyright declaration means that there is no copyright. It's a bit of a mess, and this surely won't be the only lawsuit they'll encounter.
Eric
Reading C Declarations: A Guide for the Mystified
Dear Thomas D. Selz You mentioned in your letter that you were able to download a copy of GWTW easily. Please provide us with your IP address so that we may prevent you from doing so. Thank you.
The defamer was NOT Australian, NOR was the server located in Australia ; so says the Australian High Court:
# Dow Jones has its editorial offices for Barron's, Barron's Online and WSJ.com in the city of New York. Material for publication in Barron's or Barron's Online, once prepared by its author, is transferred to a computer located in the editorial offices in New York city. From there it is transferred either directly to computers at Dow Jones's premises at South Brunswick, New Jersey, or via an intermediate site operated by Dow Jones at Harborside, New Jersey. It is then loaded onto six servers maintained by Dow Jones at its South Brunswick premises.
Gutnick claimed that he was defamed , where it mattered to him, Melbourne Australia.
The Australian High court agreed with him, and said that it had jurisdiction, because the the place of the wrong was Australia.
This is why this is a landmark, precedent setting case for disputes where one party is claiming jurisdiction because of a percieved wrong performed half a world away over the Internet.
The good news for PGA, is that following the principles from this case, Gutnick agreed to limit his claim to damage caused in Australia.
Importantly, in the proceedings before the primary judge the respondent confined his claim to the recovery of damages and the vindication of his reputation in Victoria. He also undertook not to bring proceedings in any other place.
So, if GWTW brings and action in Australia, then they could presumably only claim Australian copyright infringment damages, and not worldwide damages.
I think ! - INAL .. (just a law student)
... you could buy an oilrig and set up your own prinipality fron which to thumb your nose at the world. Although international reckognition might be a problem.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Citizens of the USA can vote using absentee ballots even if they are in other countries.
Well I surfed and unfortunately it looks like I was denied this classic in school. Says it was the most popular book (and film) ever or close to it. Anyway, there is a huge list of external reviews at imdb
and according to this one, the film at least and maybe the book for all I know glorify marital rape. Who'd a thunk?
I wonder how hard it would be for a concerted email bomb^H^H^H^H writing campaign to get this book and maybe film banned from schools and maybe libraries and rental? Seems for the U.S., revisionism is only the next step, and if books are already being banned in one state or another why not add one that is so richly deserving, seeing as how its owners wish it to be so hard to find. I don't know if it is supposed to be a parody or a snapshot of the time (since I haven't read it yet, doh) but this case is just way over the top. Now they want to stop the Internet, better call Al Gore.
How can something be removed from the public domain?
For example - say I took the existing GWTW text, which is in the public domain, and inserted a new paragraph, changed the name of one of the key characters everywhere in the book, and released the new text into the public domain as well. When this law is enacted, what is the status of the text? It is no longer GWTW, it is a derrivitive work - so the copyright does not belong to the original GWTW writer. And it was made a derrivitive work under a public domain work?
Any lawyers care to explain?
Dang, that was hard And yes, access denied from a Western Australian ISP.
IPOF gutenberg.net.au blocks access from North America to the Australian ex-copyright materials which might still have a legal millstone around their collective necks in the USA. Same old, same old.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
access from Austria is blocked too...
Probably because GWB doesn't like kangaroos!
This space left intentionally blank.
Some corrections:
s/bona-fide/fair dinkum (or the slightly less common "true blue")
s/walkabout/for a wander
s/bang my wallaby/fuck me dead if I'm lying
s/interweb/web (we're not hicks... there is a difference mate)
s/limey outback wanderer from the creek/seppo
s/tinny/beer (pronounced beee-ah)
s/push off/fuck roight off
HTH. =)
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
It could also be an American tourist.
That said I don't have anything against Americans as individuals. I've been there for a year and met a lot of extremely friendly and nice people. I do have some pretty severe problems with the US national policies though. (But quite a few Americans do too.)
I think a problem is that when you see TV reporters interviewing people in the US in Eu they often keep those that said the moronic stuff. Of course the same can be said about US TV reporting in Eu or the rest of the world.
Aren't the laws to be observed the ones on the country where the server is located? Isn't it how the online gambling industry operate.
Just curious about this point, if anyone cares to clarify it.
This is important, because we have rather queer computing laws, such as no R (>18) rating for games. The two options we get are a chopped up version, with all the adult stuff taken out, or with the case of Manhunt recently, the game released as a MA (15+), until the authority's realized (probably complained to) the violence, and took it off the shelves. not that that really would have made a difference, because everyone who wanted a copy would have bought it, or your friend, Bittorrent. similar things happened with Postal 2.
I dunno how relevant this is, but the US laws on software exportation, such as PGP, I find annoying. I'm so used to the Internet not having international boundary's, it gets my goat that I'm banned from some software under another country's laws.
As to their case against Disney: Peter Pan is currently copyright in the US (where one presumes that the prequel was made) and the EU (where the original work was created), so the only real defence would be a question of timing issues relating to the expiry of the original copyright and extension thereof by EU and US law.
But that just makes sense, after all, when G.W. gets re-elected he, led by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Pearl will concoct a scheme to invade Canada to protect the U.S. from "Salmon of Mass Desctruction".
Even as we speak, salmon are crossing the border into the United States unchecked and thereby threatening the "American Way of Life (tm)".
Height: 38U, Weight: 0 Newtons, Eyes: #0000FF, OS: Gray Matter 1.0 (Alpha)
Comprehensive Data havens may not be too far off, eh?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I could go on, but the thing I really want to say is don't reduce law to mathematics, at least not unless you understand a bit about law and the circumstances under which it is reasonable to do so. Failure to do this may result in embarrassingly bad reasoning.
proof, n. A demonstration that a conclusion is implied by certain premises and axioms.
It also works very well at american Post Offices, where they tell you "Austria is not a valid abreviation for Australia"
And yes, this is a first hand story, I lived in Austria for 18 years. during a trip to the US, in boston I had a Postal Worker tell me that.
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
They only have to wait until the free trade agreement kicks in: http://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/negotiations/us_fta/f inal-text/chapter_17.html
It'll put the copyright up to 70 years, and means we have to wait another 15 years.
3) Torturing Human beings, killing innocents and holding prisoners in violation of the Geneva convention are justified because "the terrorists are worse".
Donny Rumsfeld actually said this.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Actually, copyright law should be 14 years like it was in the beginning in the USA. Anyone that says otherwise is anti-founding fathers and thus anti-american. Including Bono, MPAA, RIAA, and Disney and friends. Not that this matters anymore when we've got big business/big government passing roughly 30k new laws each year. The entire check and balance system of the government is almost entirely gone. The only way for progress against the current system is a revolution. Sadly, I think congress/office would nuke entire cities and states before letting that happen. Marshall law would be at least be declared within moments of any uprising.
Project Gutenberg is definitely a good start towards an active collection of works that have no governmental control over them. Obviously you still risk cross country hassles but it's very much worth the cost of such hassle to have IP free works. Sorry for this OT rant: Richard Stallman and other pro-GPL advocates take note, this is your brain on copyright (or copyleft). Avoid the system, don't try to use it against itself.. it'll only end up biting you in the end. If you're so against intellectual 'property' then don't use IP laws to cover your works, release in the public domain.
Hmm, geography as a dumb american, I'll give it a stab as I R 1.
Chuck Taylor = Liberia, an artificially created nation in Africa that served as a repository for returned slaves from america. Plenty of civil war action there, natch. It is always more productive to kill people and break things than it is to work. See also, tribalism, greed, ignorance
Zimbabwe, formely Rhodesia, currently under one man one party and only one vote that counts, heh, headed up by Robert Mugabwe, who had his "veterans", many of whom weren't even born during their civil war, wipe out the opposition political parties and folks of any color, and most of the farmers, killing many of them. Most of the still alive and reasonably clueful farmers noticed this and despite it being an economic loss for them, decided to cut tothe chase and relocate,to mozambique (which is welcoming them because they still understand "food = good idea", or south africa or the US or australia, the ones left are an endangered species. Mugabe is embarrassing even to other despots. See also kim ill dung
South Africa, currently doing the same thing to it's farmers, but not getting much international press because it is even more embarrassing since the ANC takeover has given the multiculturists little to brag on since it's obviously the same old stealth genocide they've always had there is now up and running. See also manipulated media
USA, strange grouping of allegedly 50 soverign nations that are supposed to be a cooperative "union" -hence "united" in the name, for extremely limited and equistely detailed economic and self defense purposes on paper, but in reality is run as a serious top down police state, headquartered in a completely artificially maintained "district" where about every penny starts out as stolen, then it goers down hill from there. Currently run by a cartel of two cooperating political gangs who maintain an illusion of "diversness and choice", but in fact are a junta and seized power and use that power to keep themselves rolling in the pork. They are currently running a candidate for president who apparently has two different faces and two different names,a very good media photoshop effort, but who is in reality a single spoiled never had to work a day in his life Yale upper crust skull and bones frat boy, who every other statement in the press tries to convince the public that he's just a good ole boy, just like them, and really knows what's best, so please pick him to make all the decisions. He even rolls up his shirt sleeves once in awhile for photo ops, proving without a doubt that he is just a good ole boy.
How did I do?
Besides my spelun and grammer, which I know can sucketh bad at times. I think I got the geography quiz fairly close.
Note that PG and PGA, while related, are distinct entities. When PGEU and PGCanada get going (both are in the planning stages), then we'll have a group of projects, all with the same aim, but tailored to their particular geographical areas. PGEU, in particular, will concentrate on the large amount of *non-English* public domain material out there -- you can help proofread some of it by joining the European version of the US-based Distributed Proofreaders.
It's a nonsense to say that the only things PG should publish should be public domain in *all* countries -- indeed, the major difference between copyright laws in the US and those in the *entire rest of the world* is the main reason to want to branch out and create regional 'editions' of PG. Due to corporate interests, no new material will enter the public domain in the US for at least the next 14 years -- in the rest of the world, new material is added to the public domain on January 1st each year. By 2018, when material published in 1923 becomes public domain in the US, every work published by authors who died before 1948 (for the EU), 1958 (for India), or even 1968 (for Canada) will be public domain in those areas.
The US is currently trying to push life+50 countries to become life+70. When it succeeds in this, it will start pushing for life+70 countries to become life+90. The trend for ever-increasing copyright terms has to be resisted. One of the key ways to do this is to build people's understanding of the need for, and benefits of, the public domain. PG is a key part of this.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
From your link:
"28 years + could be renewed for 47 years, now extended by 20 years for a total renewal of 67 years. If not so renewed, now in public domain"
I'm afraid this means that the *extension* lasts for 67 years, for a total copyright term of 67+28=95 years. Gone With The Wind will not become public domain in the US until 2031.
Even without the Disney Copyright Term Extension Act, it would have been copy restricted until 2011.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
"The Bono copyright extension was merely to bring the duration of a US copyright up to the same length of time as the European Union's copyrights."
Can't say as that it was a very succesful attempt then. I don't know much about US Copyright law, but I seem to remember something about corporate copyright to last twenty years longer in the U.S. compared to the E.U., and the gap between recording rights is vast; rights to the first Elvis recordings cease to be in 2005, IIRC.
PG should simply reply "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
Sola Deo Gloria!
So, let me get it straight.
An american is threatening an Australian about an Australian server in Australia about what an Australian person who placed this Australian server?
Hmmm.
Someone reeeealy needs to explain to these people that the only way you can get your way in the world is by diplomacy or by force. And when you use force, well... we can all plainly see where *that* leads.
Some people in some more inwards-looking countries seem to forget that their cultures and their laws stop functioning at their border. Beyond these borders, one only get to choose between asking permission and acting 'all bully-like'.
And international bullying always seems to lead to expensive karma debts with unexpectedly high interest. One might even be tempted remind them that the road to happiness is through diplomacy.
The best reaction to this attack on the Gutenberg project seems to me to laugh hearrtily at the arrogance of some foreigner to Australia who doesn't seem to know enough geography to find the USA's borders.
Hackmare
-- ronan at roasp.com roasp.com
The server isn't a person - it isn't "acting". The act of copying, whether legal or otherwise, is performed by the person clicking the link, typing the command, or otherwise acting to initiate the transaction. Unless they're going to go after the programmers, sysadmins and managers who installed the systems, whose acts "enabled" the copying act. Based on that sensible jurisprudence, where humans have rights to, and responsibility for, our actions, and machines have no rights or responsibilities, the greedy GWTW estate can find liability only in Americans who download, if GWTW is under copyright here.
--
make install -not war
To remove works from the public domain, it typically takes a law, and that law must itself be legal.
It's hard to do in "democratic" countries but easy in a dictatorship.
You can sometimes accomplish the same thing if you are creative. Until a few years ago, It's a Wonderful Life (1946, copyright NOT renewed on time) was played every Christmas, in large part because it was in the public domain.
However, someone realized that one of the songs ("Buffalo Gal," I think) was still under copyright. This means nobody can show this film without the rights to play that song. Presumably, the studio that made it has the right to say "you can play the song as long as it's part of the movie," which gives them the right to license the movie again.
So, in effect, what was THOUGHT to be legally unconstrained was, in fact, under partial copyright the while time, but that copyright was not enforced for 20 years.
Memo to self:
Next time I make a movie, include at least one song that's already under copyright.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
*struggling*
...to resist flaming
...the ignorant assclown
trying so hard...
OH, THE AGONY!!!!
p.s. Congrats on getting through that comment without mentioning France. It can't have been easy.
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
if some small Pacific or Caribbean island country passed a law granting copyright protection for 1000 years (with a very stiff copyright registration fee of course) to any resident (two weeks required to establish residency) or to any corporation chartered there. It could be a gold mine.