On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Yann Forget
<yann(a)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
____________________________________________________________________________________
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total
Access, No Cost.