To clarify on the corporate copyright thing: I should have said works made after Jan 1 1946 -- since they would not have been PD in Canada on Jan 1 1996, when the URAA took effect in the US and ensured the copyright of foreign works for 95 years.
I can't speak to Crown copyright, but it's 50 years, so I assume the same logic would apply.
2008/5/26 Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com:
On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 8:51 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
geni wrote:
2008/5/25 Padraic user.padraic@gmail.com:
Based on our amateur legal analysis at [[Commons:Deletion
requests/Library
and Archives Canada non-PD images]], there is a potentially large class
of
images which are PD in Canada, but not the US: those works whose
copyright
was initially held by corporations (or the Crown), which expire 50
years
after publication, but only after 95 years in the US due to the URAA.
In the case of crown copyright can the government legaly enforce any claim or would they run into a domestic lawsuit if they tried?
Domestic lawsuit over what? After 50 years it's in the public domain. While the issue has previously been raised about public domain being overridden by crown privilege this seems contrary to the Canadian court tendency to diminish the influence of crown privilege.
Err, presumeably the Queen of Canada could try to sue Wikimedia or the uploaders in an American court. These images are clearly PD in Canada (and some, at least, are explicitly acknowledged as such) but may not be PD in the States.
Secondly are you sure the US wouldn't consider crown copyright expired the equivalent of released into the public domain?
Err, this is very ambigious, but it's also not clear whether the images in question, when produced by Crown Corporations, would fall under Crown Copyright, or whether they're PD through a clause in Canadian Copyright law that puts photographs into the public domain 50 years after they're taken if their first own is a corporation.
One of the problems here is the continuing uncertainty over the US non-recognition of the rule of the shorter term. Canada does specifically recognize the shorter term except as it relates to works from the United States or Mexico.
Ec
WilyD
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