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Wikipedia's $100 Million Dream
An anonymous reader writes "Jimmy Wales recently asked the Wikipedia community to suggest useful, 'works that could in theory be purchased and freed' assuming a 'budget of $100 million to purchase
copyrights.' He went on to say that he has spoken with a person 'who is potentially in a position to make this happen.' Ideas are being collected at the meta-wiki. Some early suggestions include, satellite imagery, textbooks, scientific journals and photo archives." So how about it? What works would you like to see wikified?
The Baen Free library has been giving away free copies of the first books in series, and it seems to work
Shakespere is public domain.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
"I'd like to see some stuff like repair manuals for cars, exloded parts drawings, etc. That stuff can be hard to find sometimes, as its always copywrited. How would this work though, if they buy copywrited material is it just OK for them to post it up for free for everyone?" They would be buying the copywrights, not juse a copywrighted work. Once they own the copywrights, then they control the work. So then they can post it up in it's entirety for the rest of the world to enjoy and learn from.
Happy Puppy User
A solution to your troubles is already in the works and thus the money can be safely placed elsewhere. Currently the developers are working on an embedded-media implementation of ogg theora. You can read more about the development effort at media-wiki.
Rankmaniac 2010
I bring to you:
http://www.wiktionary.org/
No, they aren't. The texts of those works derived from manuscripts--in series like the Teubner texts or the Oxford Classical Texts--are often still under copyright, and many translations into English are still copyright. One is either dependent on Victorian-era stuff, or one has to translate the material himself (and distribute only the translation, since the text may be copyright).
The translations aren't. For out-of-copyright versions, you still have to go back to versions published a century ago, where the translations are uniformly full of "thou"s and "thee"s and written in bad verse more incomprehensible than the original languages. In fact even modern critical editions of the texts in their original languages are under copyright.
Current editions of Shakespeare aren't.
Most of these are owned by private entities, making it quite difficult to access the information -- for example, a copy of the California building codes costs close to $500 in three-ring binder form. Most jurisdictions incorporate the copyrighted documents into law by reference only, trying to sidestep the problem that the law of the land is not copyrightable.
The most popular English translations of ye olde publishing standbye - The Holy Bible - are covered by copyright in various jurisdictions. The Revised Standard Version and New International Version (two pillars of the modern English market) are both new enough to be under copyright, as are all of the heavily-paraphrased versions (e.g. Living Bible). Even the King James Version is under crown copyright in the UK. The most "modern" translations in the Public Domain are generally deprecated versions such as the (un-Revised) American Standard Version.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
JSTOR has back issues of several hundred well known journals, dating back to 1665. The bulk of scientific knowledge is in there. Web of Science is an index of basically every scientific paper that has ever been published. I belive that puting these resources in the public domain would accelerate the creation of scientific knowledge. Imagine the millions of intelligent people that today can't access these sources because they are expensive. Also, making scientific knowledge available for public scrutiny would make scientists more accountable for their work.
Good idea concerning The Penguin Classic Library, but the thing is, most of the titles in the collection are already 100% free from copyright restrictions, making purchasing the rights to them a foolish endeavor. Dickens? Shakespeare? Plato? That's all public domain stuff, and most of it is already available on Gutenberg. The $7,989.50 that you're charged is literally to defer the costs of printing and shipping to you 1,082 different paperback books.
Home of the Underdogs gets around the lost works problem interestingly. If there isn't anyone that owns the rights anymore, they can't complain if someone else is distributing it. So Underdogs just posts stuff it thinks is lost. If they're wrong the copyright holder sends their lawyers and the files get taken down and a link gets put to the rightful owner. If there really is no rights holder... well who's going to bring suit of copyright violation?
PS. Those games are in there for download right now. Go!
100m is a drop in the bucket for geodata. I have seen plenty of data sets of small areas for $1mil plus. That doesn't go very far.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
You're looking in the wrong places.
Old works fall into the public domain 70 years after the author's death (in the US that is). Remember that translations are new and original works and so they might not be in the public domain. Just read Wikipedia's article.
Rankmaniac 2010
There's a current attempt at a public domain Bible, the World English Bible. The New Testament is considered complete by the editors.
"Free "books" and lectures would allow anyone anywhere, that just have access to the internet, to learn whatever he/she want." OCW may be what you are looking for. Although I must admit that it is quite technical.
Happy Puppy User
I myself have personally protested Landover Baptist's extreme (and often cannonically incorrect) views.
Nor do I have to like that Landover Baptist protests the funerals of murdered Amish schoolgirls.
Um, Landover Baptist is satire. You're thinking of the Westboro Baptist Church.
deus does not exist but if he does
"The version as we know it was copyrighted in 1935 by the Summy Company as an arrangement by Preston Ware Orem, and is scheduled to expire in 2030. This was the first copyrighted version to include the lyrics. The company holding the copyright was purchased by Warner Chappell in 1990 for $15 million dollars, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at $5 million. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
Vote Quimby.
Just in case anyone is confused, keep in mind that Mickey Mouse is a trademark of Disney and allowing Steamboat Willie to lapse into the public domain doesn't allow others to use Mickey Mouse's image. It would allow people to produce and distribute copies of "Steamboat Willie" freely. So you could sell DVDs but Disney could still sell you for using images of Mickey on a website or T-shirt.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.