On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 23:24:14 +0930, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
I'd rather make a $100 million bonfire than paying those who hold for ransom what is legally in the public domain already.
... or at least that's our position and we're sticking to it; theirs is that they're the copyright holders, and, well, they're sticking to it too.
I don't think that is their official position, because the idea that works written hundreds of years ago are still under copyright is entirely and obviously without merit (not counting special cases like Crown copyright).
Spending some money to find out *for certain* would be quite useful. No longer would they be able to say "Oh sorry we hold the copyright to that", we'd be able to point to the relevant rulings/legislation and say "Well, no you don't, hand it over". Oh, and we need to think global here.
The fact that they don't own the copyright does not mean you can make them hand anything over. It simply means they can't use copyright to keep you from distributing copies should you be able to get or make them. However, they can try and use contracts (basically some form of NDAs) instead, which is pretty much what they are doing these days.
Roger