Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] [Wikimedia-l] Fwd: Fwd: Re: Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues

Of relevance here: http://www.publicdomainday.** org/sites/www.publicdomainday.**eu/files/World_copyright-**terms.jpg<htt… -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Wikimediaindia-l] Wikimedia Servers and Copyright Issues Date: Sun, 12 May 2013 14:51:27 +0530 From: Achal Prabhala &lt;aprabhala(a)gmail.com&gt; To: Wikimedia India Community list &lt;wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.** wikimedia.org &lt;wikimediaindia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;&gt; Hi Balasankar, The question you raise is a very important one. The solution, however, is not likely to be to host content in India (I don't speak for the Wikimedia Foundation, but there are sound legal reasons why all Wikimedia content is hosted in the US; mostly liability risk and freedom of expression and this is unlikely to change). The default across Commons and Wikisource, the two projects that host the bulk of public domain content (images, videos, sounds, books) in Wikimedia, is the US copyright term - it's the only yardstick that matters for what qualifies as public domain by virtue of being out of copyright. You are absolutely right, however, in that there's a big difference btw US copyright terms and those of other countries, for instance: For photographs, while the binding limit (Berne/TRIPs) is 25 years from the making of the work, India is life of photographer + 60 years after death, and in the US it is life + 70. For literary works, the binding limit (Berne/ TRIPs) is life + 50 years, whereas in India it is life + 60, whereas in the US it is life + 70 or 120/95 if made on work for hire. (The binding limit is the WTO mandated term that country members - US and India and 150 others - have to follow. As you can see, typically, most countries exceed the limit for reasons of their own, which they are allowed to do, with the US exceeding in far greater amount than India.) In short, there can be a difference of between 10 and 40 years between the time a work goes into the public domain in a country with shorter terms than the US (any number of countries in the non-Anglo-European world) and the US. This seriously affects even 'Indian' works (where India is the first country of publication) because of the copyright protection granted to such works in the US, thus effectively placing them under copyright for our purposes within Wikimedia long after they've gone in to the public domain in their source country. The case to consider here is Golan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/** Golan_v._Holder <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golan_v._Holder> A summary of the US Supreme Court decision in this case is - US law trumps international agreements, so the US copyright term holds within US territory, and restores copyright protection to any works that have gone into the public domain by virtue of a shorter copyright term in another country. Because Wikimedia servers are based in the US, Golan applies to us. But your question is an extremely pertinent one, and if we were to find unusual solutions to it, they would seem to lie in: 1) Whether hosting on US servers for a global audience makes any difference, since we do not serve readers only bound by US law (Wikimedia reader numbers bear this out, ie US readership = minority percentage of whole) and whether we specifically have anything special on the basis of which to mount some kind of strategic litigation on the issue of allowing us to exploit the shortest possible route to public domain anywhere in the world for all or some of our readers. 2) Whether hosting on US servers but using publicly audited geolocation to switch off for readers from IP addresses where the material in question is still under copyright is a legally and operationally feasible workaround (connected to whether Wikimedia Tech thinks this is both doable and worth our while to do) 3) Whether, if all fails and there is no getting around this in any way, Commons and Wikisource (if there is sufficient interest in those communities) should be interested in looking at a way of allowing external links to chapter-managed local sites from the US-served base to see the material in question; and if this is something, say, the India chapter wants and is willing to do, whether this route poses any legal risks. In any case, I passed around your question to a few friends for comments and suggestions - as well as to Geoff Brigham at the Wikimedia Foundation, who is not too hopeful for a solution but is very receptive to looking into it and getting back to us - and I'll tell you when I know something. Meanwhile, if you have other ways of looking into creative solutions around this problem (not at all easy to crack, but the benefits are significant) - or if anyone else on this list does - you should. Cheers, Achal On Friday 10 May 2013 10:20 PM, Balasankar Chelamattath wrote: ______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.**org &lt;Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l<https://lists…