Roger Luethi wrote:
On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 11:27:55 +0930, Alphax (Wikipedia email) wrote:
Right. There are journal archives around with stuff going back hundreds of years, but they claim copyright on all their materials; if we could free that which already qualifies for PD-old, it would be a major step in the right direction.
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.
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.