This is interesting when British governmental information may become more public. While I support pursuing with the UK government, I also consider it needed to pursue with the USA government to accept the rule of the shorter term.

Please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain#The_rule_of_the_shorter... and you will find that without honoring the rule of the shorter term of the Berne Convention in the US Copyright Law, certain works may be in the public domain in their home countries, but still considered legally copyrighted in the USA. This is harming the Wiki projects unless the server can ever be moved to a jurisdiction honoring the rule of the shorter term like Macao, but the Foundation has no such a plan.

How about using http://www.petitiononline.com/ to pursue reclaiming the public domain? I would like to strongly encourage everyone to sign the following petitions involving copyright and public domain:

http://www.petitiononline.com/eldred/petition.html Reclaim the Public Domain http://www.petitiononline.com/mrap/petition.html M.R.A. Platform http://www.petitiononline.com/ukpod001/petition.html Podcasters' Rights and the WIPO Broadcast Treaty http://www.petitiononline.com/oldgame/petition.html Abandonware

Jusjih, an admin at Commons, Wikisource, Wiktionary, and Wikipedia uncomfortable with excessive copyright blocking orphaned works

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Neil Harris usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk Date: Jan 12, 2007 6:49 PM Subject: [Foundation-l] UK government information changes on the way? To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org

The BBC is carrying an interesting story on possible changes in the attitude of the UK government to the free use of government information. At the moment, the Statute Law Database is Crown Copyright, as is nearly all UK government information, with a commercial licence needed for any use other than private study or non-commercial research.

According to the BBC, this may be about to change, and the changes may be part of a wider change in attitude to the free reuse of government data.

Is this something that the Foundation or other interested Wikipedians might be interested in pursuing with the UK government?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6255321.stm

-- Neil