Hmm. Is there any practical help the WMF could provide in this endeavour? Aside from buckets of money, which appears to be the thing the endeavour is most in need of.
Are there other countries where the law is not easily available and a word from us would help?
- d.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/29/business/media/29link.html
Link By Link Who Owns the Law? Arguments May Ensue By NOAM COHEN
IN a time when scientists are trying to patent the very genetic code that creates life, it may not be too surprising to learn that a variety of organizations — from trade groups and legal publishers to the government itself — claim copyright to the basic code that governs our society.
Carl Malamud runs PublicResource.org, which provides the text of statutes, court decisions and construction codes at no charge.
2008/9/30 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Hmm. Is there any practical help the WMF could provide in this endeavour? Aside from buckets of money, which appears to be the thing the endeavour is most in need of.
Are there other countries where the law is not easily available and a word from us would help?
From what I recall the law is protected by copyright everywhere other
than the US and North Korea (North Korea is kinda unclear it depends on what exactly is meant by government pronouncements).
UK was thinking about making accessibility hard but decided against it.
Other than that availability of laws especially the older stuff is kinda limited.
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 12:27 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/30 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Hmm. Is there any practical help the WMF could provide in this endeavour? Aside from buckets of money, which appears to be the thing the endeavour is most in need of.
Are there other countries where the law is not easily available and a word from us would help?
From what I recall the law is protected by copyright everywhere other than the US and North Korea (North Korea is kinda unclear it depends on what exactly is meant by government pronouncements).
Add Switzerland to these two...(are there really no others?). In Switzerland "laws, decrees, international treaties, means of currency, decisions, protocols and reports by public authorities, patents and published patent applications" are all explicitly exempt from copyright.
Michael
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 12:33 PM, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
From what I recall the law is protected by copyright everywhere other than the US and North Korea (North Korea is kinda unclear it depends on what exactly is meant by government pronouncements).
Add Switzerland to these two...(are there really no others?). In Switzerland "laws, decrees, international treaties, means of currency, decisions, protocols and reports by public authorities, patents and published patent applications" are all explicitly exempt from copyright.
The Netherlands as well. I actually think this holds for many countries.
Dutch Copyright law, article 11: "Er bestaat geen auteursrecht op wetten, besluiten en verordeningen, door de openbare macht uitgevaardigd, noch op rechterlijke uitspraken en administratieve beslissingen."
Translated: "There is no copyright on laws, decisions and ordinances, promulgated by public authorities, nor on judicial sentences and administrative decisions."
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 1:15 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
From what I recall the law is protected by copyright everywhere other than the US and North Korea (North Korea is kinda unclear it depends
Add Switzerland to these two...(are there really no others?). In
The Netherlands as well. I actually think this holds for many countries.
German copyright law, §5, section 1. Laws and court rulings are in the public domain.
Mathias
2008/9/30 Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com:
Add Switzerland to these two...(are there really no others?). In Switzerland "laws, decrees, international treaties, means of currency, decisions, protocols and reports by public authorities, patents and published patent applications" are all explicitly exempt from copyright.
I can't speak firmly for anywhere specific, but I have certainly seen this sort of text before in national copyright laws, plenty of times.
Specialised exemptions for legislation and vaguely legislative-like things - legal rulings, formal public reports, patents, etc - seem to be reasonably common, though full-scale governmental abandonment of copyright (as in the US) is rare.
(On a vaguely relevant note, I've seen quite a few image copyright tags which take these sort of provisions and their wording about "..reports by public authorities...", etc, to assume PD-US like status. Keep an eye out for them...)
geni wrote:
2008/9/30 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Hmm. Is there any practical help the WMF could provide in this endeavour? Aside from buckets of money, which appears to be the thing the endeavour is most in need of.
Are there other countries where the law is not easily available and a word from us would help?
From what I recall the law is protected by copyright everywhere other than the US and North Korea (North Korea is kinda unclear it depends on what exactly is meant by government pronouncements).
I don't think that is true. For what I precisely know, in France published laws are public domain.
If some texts are public domain but not easily available, they could be hosted on Wikisource.
Yann
UK was thinking about making accessibility hard but decided against it.
Other than that availability of laws especially the older stuff is kinda limited.
2008/9/30 Yann Forget yann@forget-me.net:
geni wrote:
2008/9/30 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Hmm. Is there any practical help the WMF could provide in this endeavour? Aside from buckets of money, which appears to be the thing the endeavour is most in need of.
Are there other countries where the law is not easily available and a word from us would help?
From what I recall the law is protected by copyright everywhere other than the US and North Korea (North Korea is kinda unclear it depends on what exactly is meant by government pronouncements).
I don't think that is true. For what I precisely know, in France published laws are public domain.
If some texts are public domain but not easily available, they could be hosted on Wikisource.
Well I know that UK based systems are going to tend not to have PD laws. I'm less familiar with french based legal systems.
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 8:27 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/30 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Hmm. Is there any practical help the WMF could provide in this endeavour? Aside from buckets of money, which appears to be the thing the endeavour is most in need of.
We have projects to cater for this: Commons and Wikisource projects. Both accept legal documents in scans and text respectively. On Wikisource we have the Proofread Page extension, so that we can transcribe the text of documents. Here are a few relevant transcription projects:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:H.R._Rep._No._94-1476 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:United_States_Reports,_Volume_209.djvu http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:The_Records_of_the_Federal_Convention_of... http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:California_State_Constitution_of_1879.dj... http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:Carter_Presidential_Directive_59,_Nuclea... http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:Brundtland_Report
Where we dont have images, all Wikisource projects except the German project accept text without images, such as Azeri copyright law:
http://az.wikisource.org/wiki/M%C3%BC%C9%99lliflik_h%C3%BCququ_v%C9%99_%C9%9...
Wikisource also accepts translations, so the laws can be translated into other languages so that everyone can readily understand the laws of other nations. It would be fantastic if we had free English translations of the relevant copyright laws of all nations -- Commons would find that they can figure out the copyright status a lot easier if they had the actual texts at their disposal.
Are there other countries where the law is not easily available and a word from us would help?
This is true for most countries. Even the U.S. There are a number of transcription projects on Wikisource for U.S. court decisions, Public Laws, older editions of Constitutions, etc. where the text is not otherwise available online _at all_.
From what I recall the law is protected by copyright everywhere other than the US and North Korea (North Korea is kinda unclear it depends on what exactly is meant by government pronouncements).
Absurd. Most recently written copyright laws are very clear that laws and judicial opinions are in the public domain. add Israel and Azerbaijan to the growing list appearing in this thread.
Wikisource accepts the law of _all_ countries, as it is hosted in the U.S., and the copyright office has explicitly said that anyone wanting to register a legal document for copyright purposes will need to take them to the supreme court in order to obtain a copyright. See
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:PD-GovEdict
UK, Canada and Australia are the only three I can quickly think of where crown copyright is asserted over public laws, however the crown provides simple to fulfil reuse requirements that are essentially in place to prevent misuse. On Wikisource we have recently restored the recent laws of these nations on the assumption that U.S. law prevails while the servers are located in the U.S.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Proposed_deletions/Archives/2008-05...
It would be great to have more legal opinions given on this matter; esp. from the WMF.
-- John Vandenberg
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
UK, Canada and Australia are the only three I can quickly think of where crown copyright is asserted over public laws, however the crown provides simple to fulfil reuse requirements that are essentially in place to prevent misuse.
Do you have a quick link to the reuse requirements?
(I've done websites with reprints of Australian laws and court decisions, on the assumption that restricting doing so wouldn't pass the giggle test.)
- d.
2008/9/30 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
UK, Canada and Australia are the only three I can quickly think of where crown copyright is asserted over public laws, however the crown provides simple to fulfil reuse requirements that are essentially in place to prevent misuse.
Do you have a quick link to the reuse requirements?
(I've done websites with reprints of Australian laws and court decisions, on the assumption that restricting doing so wouldn't pass the giggle test.)
It looks like an NC license:
Section 182A
182A Copyright in statutory instruments and judgments etc. (1) The copyright, including any prerogative right or privilege of the Crown in the nature of copyright, in a prescribed work is not infringed by the making, by reprographic reproduction, of one copy of the whole or of a part of that work by or on behalf of a person and for a particular purpose. (2) Subsection (1) does not apply to the making, by reprographic reproduction, of a copy of the whole or a part of the work, where a charge is made for making and supplying that copy, unless the amount of the charge does not exceed the cost of making and supplying that copy. (3) In subsection (1), a prescribed work means: (a) an Act or State Act, an enactment of the legislature of a Territory or an instrument (including an Ordinance or a rule, regulation or by-law) made under an Act, a State Act or such an enactment; (b) a judgment, order or award of a Federal court or of a court of a State or Territory; (c) a judgment, order or award of a Tribunal (not being a court) established by or under an Act or other enactment of the Commonwealth, a State or a Territory; (d) reasons for a decision of a court referred to in paragraph (b), or of a Tribunal referred to in paragraph (c), given by the court or by the Tribunal; or (e) reasons given by a Justice, Judge or other member of a court referred to in paragraph (b), or of a member of a Tribunal referred to in paragraph (c), for a decision given by him or her either as the sole member, or as one of the members, of the court or Tribunal.
2008/9/30 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
UK, Canada and Australia are the only three I can quickly think of where crown copyright is asserted over public laws, however the crown provides simple to fulfil reuse requirements that are essentially in place to prevent misuse.
Do you have a quick link to the reuse requirements?
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/about/faqs-crown-copyright.htm
"Waiver means that although copyright is asserted, Government wishes to encourage the widespread use of the material. Users are permitted to copy or publish the material in any medium without having to seek formal permission or to pay a fee. Users should make sure that - the material is reproduced accurately and not in a misleading context; that the material is correctly acknowledged and that the source and status of the material is identified."
This is the generic Crown Copyright waiver applied to such material.
In the US, actual court decisions and statutes are in the public domain, according to a seminal case called Wheaton v. Peters decided in the early nineteenth century. (Wheaton and Peters were two of the early Reporters of Decisions for the U.S. Supreme Court.) There is a host of caselaw dealing with questions such as whether the page citations for decisions are copyrightable and whether using them is fair use. There are more recent disputes concerning whether private companies may assist munipalities in codifying their ordinances in return for an assignment of copyrightability on the collection.
There is thus an ample body of free material that we could republish if we chose to. However, Findlaw and similar sites are doing a reasonably good job of making caselaw and statutes available, so I don't know that there is a role here for Wikimedia at least regarding the law of the United States.
Newyorkbrad
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/30 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
UK, Canada and Australia are the only three I can quickly think of where crown copyright is asserted over public laws, however the crown provides simple to fulfil reuse requirements that are essentially in place to prevent misuse.
Do you have a quick link to the reuse requirements?
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/about/faqs-crown-copyright.htm
"Waiver means that although copyright is asserted, Government wishes to encourage the widespread use of the material. Users are permitted to copy or publish the material in any medium without having to seek formal permission or to pay a fee. Users should make sure that - the material is reproduced accurately and not in a misleading context; that the material is correctly acknowledged and that the source and status of the material is identified."
This is the generic Crown Copyright waiver applied to such material.
--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
2008/9/30 Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com:
There is thus an ample body of free material that we could republish if we chose to. However, Findlaw and similar sites are doing a reasonably good job of making caselaw and statutes available, so I don't know that there is a role here for Wikimedia at least regarding the law of the United States.
Possibly the Foundation could contact Mr Malamud and ask if there's anything we could help with other than money (which we don't have spare).
- d.
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 5:01 AM, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
In the US, actual court decisions and statutes are in the public domain, according to a seminal case called Wheaton v. Peters decided in the early nineteenth century. (Wheaton and Peters were two of the early Reporters of Decisions for the U.S. Supreme Court.) There is a host of caselaw dealing with questions such as whether the page citations for decisions are copyrightable and whether using them is fair use. There are more recent disputes concerning whether private companies may assist munipalities in codifying their ordinances in return for an assignment of copyrightability on the collection.
There is thus an ample body of free material that we could republish if we chose to. However, Findlaw and similar sites are doing a reasonably good job of making caselaw and statutes available, so I don't know that there is a role here for Wikimedia at least regarding the law of the United States.
Newyorkbrad
While not complete yet, Title 17 of the USC on Wikisource is an example of how we _can_ do a better job.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_17
It is complimented by many of the texts of the laws as they were enacted..
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/U.S._Public_Law_105-80
... and a house report which is often referred to to understand the spirit of the changes that were made.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:H.R._Rep._No._94-1476
-- John
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Absurd. Most recently written copyright laws are very clear that laws and judicial opinions are in the public domain. add Israel and Azerbaijan to the growing list appearing in this thread.
Okey. As I've said I'm more familiar with British based law than French based (is Azerbaijan Russian based?). The problem is that British does not have PD laws and has never done so which means that anyone with an English law based legal system who hasn't updated the relevant sections will not have PD laws. Rather a lot of countries have English law based legal systems.
geni wrote:
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Absurd. Most recently written copyright laws are very clear that laws and judicial opinions are in the public domain. add Israel and Azerbaijan to the growing list appearing in this thread.
Okey. As I've said I'm more familiar with British based law than French based (is Azerbaijan Russian based?). The problem is that British does not have PD laws and has never done so which means that anyone with an English law based legal system who hasn't updated the relevant sections will not have PD laws. Rather a lot of countries have English law based legal systems.
Not okay. This is just absurd. It is ludicrous to assume that every country which is based on English law, will have jumped over the cliff after it, and balked from safeguarding itself from copyright silliness.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
2008/9/30 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com:
geni wrote:
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Absurd. Most recently written copyright laws are very clear that laws and judicial opinions are in the public domain. add Israel and Azerbaijan to the growing list appearing in this thread.
Okey. As I've said I'm more familiar with British based law than French based (is Azerbaijan Russian based?). The problem is that British does not have PD laws and has never done so which means that anyone with an English law based legal system who hasn't updated the relevant sections will not have PD laws. Rather a lot of countries have English law based legal systems.
Not okay. This is just absurd. It is ludicrous to assume that every country which is based on English law, will have jumped over the cliff after it, and balked from safeguarding itself from copyright silliness.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Given that a highly industrialised state like Israel only managed to update it's legal system last year and it appears that Australia hasn't updated the relevant part I wouldn't say that is a safe bet. Can anyone find an exception in Canadian law? Appears at first glance to fall under sec 12 (crown copyright). Actually section 12 may have additional issues.
Copyright silliness is also questionable. It is fairly easy to see how a government could think that the liberties of crown copyright are enough.
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 7:42 AM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/30 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com:
geni wrote:
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Absurd. Most recently written copyright laws are very clear that laws and judicial opinions are in the public domain. add Israel and Azerbaijan to the growing list appearing in this thread.
Okey. As I've said I'm more familiar with British based law than French based (is Azerbaijan Russian based?). The problem is that British does not have PD laws and has never done so which means that anyone with an English law based legal system who hasn't updated the relevant sections will not have PD laws. Rather a lot of countries have English law based legal systems.
Not okay. This is just absurd. It is ludicrous to assume that every country which is based on English law, will have jumped over the cliff after it, and balked from safeguarding itself from copyright silliness.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Given that a highly industrialised state like Israel only managed to update it's legal system last year and it appears that Australia hasn't updated the relevant part I wouldn't say that is a safe bet. Can anyone find an exception in Canadian law? Appears at first glance to fall under sec 12 (crown copyright). Actually section 12 may have additional issues.
Australia updated its copyright laws long ago, but decided to keep crown protection of acts of the government. We have Wikipedia articles on these topics ...
-- John
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 7:14 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote:
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Absurd. Most recently written copyright laws are very clear that laws and judicial opinions are in the public domain. add Israel and Azerbaijan to the growing list appearing in this thread.
Okey. As I've said I'm more familiar with British based law than French based (is Azerbaijan Russian based?). The problem is that British does not have PD laws and has never done so which means that anyone with an English law based legal system who hasn't updated the relevant sections will not have PD laws. Rather a lot of countries have English law based legal systems.
Not okay. This is just absurd. It is ludicrous to assume that every country which is based on English law, will have jumped over the cliff after it, and balked from safeguarding itself from copyright silliness.
It was in 1911 that commonwealth countries were given the option of defining their own copyright laws. As far as I know, all have radically revised their law, but many still have the 1911 law in effect for works before the new laws were enacted. Wikisource also has a project to produce a text of the 1911 copyright act. We need help proofreading this vital law.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:The_copyright_act,_1911,_annotated.djvu
The UK gov only provides a revised edition, which doesnt help us understand what copyright law is in effect in commonwealth countries which enacted their own laws at different years, and thus based on different editions of the UK law. Here is the revised law:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1911/cukpga_19110046_en_1
The UK gov only provide originals for a small subset of laws prior to 1998.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts.htm -- John V
John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
The UK gov only provide originals for a small subset of laws prior to 1998.
A year or so ago, I had the chance to speak briefly with someone who'd been responsible for the Statute Law Database, and asked him about the publication of older (now repealed) legislation. His answer was that they do indeed plan to do so, but as it's of mainly historic interest it'll be some time.
So we will get the originals, eventually...
(I asked because I had been roughing out a plan for a project to do just this. If they're going to do it, it seemed excessive for me to...)
John Vandenberg wrote:
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 7:14 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote:
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Absurd. Most recently written copyright laws are very clear that laws and judicial opinions are in the public domain. add Israel and Azerbaijan to the growing list appearing in this thread.
Okey. As I've said I'm more familiar with British based law than French based (is Azerbaijan Russian based?). The problem is that British does not have PD laws and has never done so which means that anyone with an English law based legal system who hasn't updated the relevant sections will not have PD laws. Rather a lot of countries have English law based legal systems.
Not okay. This is just absurd. It is ludicrous to assume that every country which is based on English law, will have jumped over the cliff after it, and balked from safeguarding itself from copyright silliness.
It was in 1911 that commonwealth countries were given the option of defining their own copyright laws. As far as I know, all have radically revised their law, but many still have the 1911 law in effect for works before the new laws were enacted. Wikisource also has a project to produce a text of the 1911 copyright act. We need help proofreading this vital law.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:The_copyright_act,_1911,_annotated.djvu
The UK gov only provides a revised edition, which doesnt help us understand what copyright law is in effect in commonwealth countries which enacted their own laws at different years, and thus based on different editions of the UK law. Here is the revised law:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1911/cukpga_19110046_en_1
The UK gov only provide originals for a small subset of laws prior to 1998.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts.htm
John V
Heh. This does sort of make me interested in a further enquiry though...
Are all the countries which base their law on the english system still members of the commonwealth?
And no, this is not an idle question or asked merely rhetorically. I really don't know.
For that matter, could not, and did not some countries base their legal system on the english laws, and never ever were members of the kingdom/empire/commonwealth in the first place? I could easily imagine a country devising a legal system modeled after the English legal framework, which actually never came under the crown itself.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
Are all the countries which base their law on the english system still members of the commonwealth?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_systems#Common_law
It looks like the Republic of Ireland and parts of the US legal system are non-commonwealth countries with English-based law. They were both in the British Empire at one point, though. Nowhere else in that list jumps out at me as being non-commonwealth, although I don't pretend to have memorised a complete membership list.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Are all the countries which base their law on the english system still members of the commonwealth?
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_systems#Common_law
It looks like the Republic of Ireland and parts of the US legal system are non-commonwealth countries with English-based law. They were both in the British Empire at one point, though. Nowhere else in that list jumps out at me as being non-commonwealth, although I don't pretend to have memorised a complete membership list.
What leaps out at me from that text is the phrase:
"In addition to these countries, several others have adapted the common law system into a mixed system."
To me these would be termed based on the English system, if we make the assumption that "common law" == "the English system".
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
2008/9/30 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com:
Heh. This does sort of make me interested in a further enquiry though...
Are all the countries which base their law on the english system still members of the commonwealth?
No a bunch left when they became republics. India for example.
And no, this is not an idle question or asked merely rhetorically. I really don't know.
For that matter, could not, and did not some countries base their legal system on the english laws, and never ever were members of the kingdom/empire/commonwealth in the first place? I could easily imagine a country devising a legal system modeled after the English legal framework, which actually never came under the crown itself.
Technically the Philippines via the US. But much of what wasn't nabbed by Britain was acquired by other Europeans or later the soviets. Not sure what ethiopian law is based on these days.
Becoming a Republic is not the same thing as leaving the Commonwealth. India is still in the Commonwealth, for example.
Newyorkbrad
On Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 6:31 PM, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
2008/9/30 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com:
Heh. This does sort of make me interested in a further enquiry though...
Are all the countries which base their law on the english system still members of the commonwealth?
No a bunch left when they became republics. India for example.
And no, this is not an idle question or asked merely rhetorically. I really don't know.
For that matter, could not, and did not some countries base their legal system on the english laws, and never ever were members of the kingdom/empire/commonwealth in the first place? I could easily imagine a country devising a legal system modeled after the English legal framework, which actually never came under the crown itself.
Technically the Philippines via the US. But much of what wasn't nabbed by Britain was acquired by other Europeans or later the soviets. Not sure what ethiopian law is based on these days.
-- geni
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2008/10/1 Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com:
Becoming a Republic is not the same thing as leaving the Commonwealth. India is still in the Commonwealth, for example.
You learn something every day! We even have an article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_republic
A majority of the Commonwealth member countries are republics now. There are even a couple that have their own monarchies separate from the British one (Lesotho, Swaziland). I don't know how this impacts on the copyright status of their legislation, however....
Newyorkbrad
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 5:14 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.comwrote:
2008/10/1 Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com:
Becoming a Republic is not the same thing as leaving the Commonwealth. India is still in the Commonwealth, for example.
You learn something every day! We even have an article on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_republic
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 8:12 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
John Vandenberg wrote:
On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 7:14 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
geni wrote:
2008/9/30 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
Absurd. Most recently written copyright laws are very clear that laws and judicial opinions are in the public domain. add Israel and Azerbaijan to the growing list appearing in this thread.
Okey. As I've said I'm more familiar with British based law than French based (is Azerbaijan Russian based?). The problem is that British does not have PD laws and has never done so which means that anyone with an English law based legal system who hasn't updated the relevant sections will not have PD laws. Rather a lot of countries have English law based legal systems.
Not okay. This is just absurd. It is ludicrous to assume that every country which is based on English law, will have jumped over the cliff after it, and balked from safeguarding itself from copyright silliness.
It was in 1911 that commonwealth countries were given the option of defining their own copyright laws. As far as I know, all have radically revised their law, but many still have the 1911 law in effect for works before the new laws were enacted. Wikisource also has a project to produce a text of the 1911 copyright act. We need help proofreading this vital law.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Index:The_copyright_act,_1911,_annotated.djvu
The UK gov only provides a revised edition, which doesnt help us understand what copyright law is in effect in commonwealth countries which enacted their own laws at different years, and thus based on different editions of the UK law. Here is the revised law:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1911/cukpga_19110046_en_1
The UK gov only provide originals for a small subset of laws prior to 1998.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts.htm
John V
Heh. This does sort of make me interested in a further enquiry though...
Are all the countries which base their law on the english system still members of the commonwealth?
Eygpt was granted independence in 1922.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Egyptian_Copyright_Law
South Africa became a republic in 1961.
More can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations#Termination_of_membersh... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_members_of_the_Commonwealth_of_Nations
For that matter, could not, and did not some countries base their legal system on the english laws, and never ever were members of the kingdom/empire/commonwealth in the first place? I could easily imagine a country devising a legal system modeled after the English legal framework, which actually never came under the crown itself.
Perhaps, however the 1911 Copyright Act was primarily about divesting a measured amount of British power over the colonies. See they still wanted the colonies to pay their copyright dues, so they didnt let them enact any law ... the colonies still had to respect copyright, and this was at a time when international copyright was first being agreed upon. The UK signed the Berne Convention in 1887, the 1911 copyright act was when much of it was enacted, but large parts only came into force with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of _1988_, 100 years later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary... http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_...)
-- John Vandenberg
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