Isabell Long wrote: King Tut's tomb is strong enough for a press release (here we go again!). Discovered in 1922, only now will the public be able to treat Carter's works as their property. Other deaths of authors: Havelock Ellis; Ford Madox Ford; Sigmund Freud; Zane Grey; Joseph Roth; W. B. Yeats. Arthur Rackham the illustrator too. Charles **

On Mon, 2009-12-21 at 13:29 +0000, geni wrote: I didn't see any asterisked authors. That, I think, would be a good target; adding more content to Wikibooks. Secondary to that, if WMUK has any voice talent, or can entice notable figures to do readings, spoken Wikibooks would be a good place to target stuff. Who could read Carter's Journals? And the various other pieces now available? Is Yeats one that UK celebs could be convinced to donate spoken versions of to the Commons? -- Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org> Wikinewsie.org

Draft, then. "What do Howard Carter, discoverer of the tomb of King Tut, author Zane Grey of the cowboy classic "Riders of the Purple Sage", and sexologist Havelock Ellis have in common? The answer is that they all died in 1939, meaning that on New Year's Day all their works are free from copyright. Every year there occurs an event like the well-publicised opening of the Public Records, but which often goes unnoticed, when the copyright expires on authors who have been dead for 70 years. In the Internet age, their works can then become free downloads, and with a ebook reader the likely new trendy consumer electronics item, "Public Domain Day" will in future become the signal for mass distribution of free texts and voice recordings. Other authors newly in the public domain in 2010 include W. B. Yeats and Sigmund Freud, and the classic children's book illustrator Arthur Rackham. Wikimedia UK helps promote the uploading of copyright-free texts in accessible form on the Wikisource website, and campaigns to free up more content for everyone to use." Comments: Not entering into too many copyright technicalities for the usual reasons (press can ask). This is presented as the half-baked story, which is one form of classic press release (allows journalist to have inspiration as to other components). (No Ford Madox Ford, sadly: "The Good Soldier" is one of the great books, but too few people know that.) Charles

On Mon, 2009-12-21 at 17:08 +0000, David Gerard wrote: I took Charles' draft, put it on the wiki, and did a slight rewrite. David's suggestion is an excellent point to add to a detail I inserted - build the membership. http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Press_releases/Public_domain_day -- Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org> Wikinewsie.org

On Mon, 2009-12-21 at 17:31 +0000, Charles Matthews wrote: There is, as you point out, a great opportunity to put WMUK before a highbrow audience. Yes, Wikibooks should be alerted to, and invited to contribute to, any release on this. However, the idea of audiobooks, or even single poems from Yeats, was what caught my eye. I have a sneaking suspicion there's one or two UK celebs could be persuaded to records stuff for Commons; getting a "featured audio" on Wikipedia would stroke their egos. Stephen Fry reading his favourite Yeats poem anyone? -- Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil(a)wikinewsie.org> Wikinewsie.org

WMUK list CC Steve Virgin Charles Matthews wrote: So Stephen Fry is represented by Hamilton Hodell: http://www.hamiltonhodell.co.uk/page.asp?partid=3 And is so pro-Web it hurts: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7926509.stm So this is to follow up, surely. Who would like to contact the agency, explain that a smallish gesture of recording a poem on own machine and posting it to Commons is something Stephen could do to back up his comment on the BBC page: "The past co-exists"? Which is very Yeatsian. And doing it on New Year's Day would be symbolic timing. Charles

Brian McNeil wrote: I'm going to put some technical issues up on the Talk page of the draft press release. As has been pointed out on this list, and as was clear from the reaction I had on Wikisource to the 1939 deaths I listed, the difference between the UK and US public domain positions is something serious here. We need to steer round that. Also the audio recording issue brings up a file format problem (should be .spx from the point of view of Commons) and this can't just be waved away. Whoever deals with this needs to be on top of the format issue (from research last night it looks to me like a MIDI file could be converted, but that needs more work). So right now I'm not sure about elaborating the plan any further. Charles