--- Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Yann Forget
yann@forget-me.net wrote:
2009, 60 years after Gandhi's death. The
translator is Hélène
Hart, she never wrote nor translated anything
else beside this
book, and her date of death is not known, even
to the French
National Library (BNF). I personaly called the
BNF to ask for
details. The book was published only once in
1924, and is out
of print since then. If even the BNF does not
know anything
about Hélène Hart, I doubt anybody else knows
it.
I understand that Swedish book publishers in cases like these publish the book anyway, and if the copyright holder contacts them later there is a standard compensation paid out, based on the number of sold copies. This means that the copyright holder who comes too late and makes the claim after publication can get compensated but can't negotiate the price and can't veto the publication. For the publisher it's not hard to do the math: Just set aside the small amount of money for every printed copy. This is apparently a workable solution for the book printing business.
I feel I have replied too much to this thread but you raise something that really gets to the heart of the matter. What you describe above is pretty much what the "Orphans Works" reports recommended to US lawmakers. They did not recommend that orphan works become PD, but rather to set a cap on royalties of works were a reasonable effort to locate the copyright holder failed. So if someone comes forward after publication the publisher had known in advance what his maximum financial risk was.
This is a practical solution for most people but not for an organization with an idealistic position like WMF. These works could be described as "practically free". You could treat for all intents and purposes like free content with practically no risk. But as long as the WMF defines free content in idealistic terms rather than practical ones, they are outside the boundaries.
Wikisource has had one copyright fork for sometime, I heard another is being started. The fork is maintained by people who are still dedicated to Wikisource, linked to by Wikisource, and a common destination of copyright deletions. While one of the main features of the fork I am familiar with is the server's location in Canada, it also takes a softer line on free content. So far the en.WP policy on images makes a similar fork for Commons unnecessary. But I just want to point out that the WMF may not be our answer to hosting these sort of works, and if they are not it is OK. The world doesn't end if you have to supplement the collection off of WMF servers.
Birgitte SB
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