On Wed, Jun 2, 2010 at 11:54 PM, Eugene Zelenko eugene.zelenko@gmail.com wrote:
I think it's reasonable to account country of origin copyrights laws too as Commons does, especially with Wikisource editions other then English, where majority of text most likely originated outside of USA. And majority of audience also likely to be outside of USA.
The Wikisource projects are not a single project like Commons, nor is it structured like Wikipedia.
If I want to add a French text onto Wikisource, I must go to the French Wikisource project, and abide by their policies. I can not do it on English Wikisource.
e.g.
http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Livre:La_pornocratie,_ou_Les_femmes_dans_les_t...
If I want to read a text that was written in French, I will most likely need to go to French Wikisource, unless there is a English translation has been published and is in the public domain.
Some Wikisource projects do allow "Wikisource" translations, but that is a different barrel of worms.
http://wikisource.org/wiki/WS:COORD
It would be nice to have usage statistics for the Wikisource projects, indicating where their user base is.
-- John Vandenberg