geni wrote:
On 9/26/06, Alphax (Wikipedia email) alphasigmax@gmail.com wrote:
... so are we allowed to upload them to Commons while we're waiting?
wikisource would be more logical for the most part. You should be sure something is public domain where you are and in theUS before uploading though and in the UK currently caselaw that I know about says it isn't.
Yes, Wikisource is the more appropriate place for the /transcribed/ journals; my question was whether we could upload the PDFs to Commons since they're media files.
However I'm hesitant to act without clarification about the copyright status; is a scan of a journal article written in 1665 eligible for copyright? Several things come to mind here:
1. Who was the copyright holder, the author or the journal? 2. If it's the author, they're all long dead so {{PD-old}} applies 3. Per Bridgeman v. Corel, a "slavish copy" of a work in the public domain creates no new copyright. 4. Bridgeman made a big fuss out of the fact that under UK law, the reproductions /would/ be protected. The court's response was:
"While the Court's conclusion as to the law governing copyrightability renders the point moot, the Court is persuaded that plaintiff's copyright claim would fail even if the governing law were that of the United Kingdom."
5. I'm in Australia, downloading something from the United Kingdom, and uploading it to a server in the United States. Since there are conflicting copyright laws at work here, which one applies?