It has long been nagging me about the policy of HMSO with respect to Crown copyright material outside of the UK. Inside the UK the position is clear: published material from 1954 or earlier is out of copyright as it was published over 50 years ago. Outside the UK the position of Crown copyright material has long been ambiguous.
I therefore sent a Freedom of Information Act request to the Office for Public Sector Information (what HMSO has changed its name to) requesting clarification of the length of copyright for published Crown copyright material outside the UK. I received the following reply from their Information Policy Adviser:
"Dear David,
Thank you for your email enquiry dated May 23rd, 2005. Crown copyright protection in published material lasts for fifty years from the end of the year in which the material was first published. Therefore, to use your example, material published in 1954, and any Crown copyright material published before that date, would now be out of copyright, and may be freely reproduced throughout the world.
I hope this information will be helpful to you, but if you have any further questions please feel free to get in touch with me again."
So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
David Newton
David Newton wrote:
So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
Certainly good news! The copyright laws are rather complex, so I suppose it's not impossible that they could in theory lay a claim to more than 50 years under, say, U.S. copyright law for material published in the U.S. To avoid that possibility, it may be worth archiving this response somewhere, since "the copyright owner explicitly told me I could use it" is a reasonably good defense against copyright-infringement claims, and at the very least would likely severely mitigate any damages that might ever arise.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
David Newton wrote:
So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
Certainly good news! The copyright laws are rather complex, so I suppose it's not impossible that they could in theory lay a claim to more than 50 years under, say, U.S. copyright law for material published in the U.S. To avoid that possibility, it may be worth archiving this response somewhere, since "the copyright owner explicitly told me I could use it" is a reasonably good defense against copyright-infringement claims, and at the very least would likely severely mitigate any damages that might ever arise.
If something is already in the public domain the copyright owner's permission is of no consequence. It only matters when something is still protected.
As a rule, no country will grant citizens of another country greater copyright protection than they do to their own citizens, nor will they extend the rights of a foreign citizen beyond what he had in his own country.
Canada is a Berne Convention country which follows the life + 50 rule. This means that on a worldwide basis a Canadian author's copyrights expire 50 years after his death notwithstanding foreign laws that would extend this period to 70 years. Similarly, any foreign author could be freely republished in Canada 50 years after his death, but that could not be distributed internationaly to countries with a longer expiry period.
Ec
We talked about it on IRC a few days ago and I am sorry but I must send some bad news here :
Under the Bern Convention, article 5(1) : Authors shall enjoy, in respect of works for which they are protected under this Convention, in countries of the Union other than the country of origin, the rights which their respective laws do now or may hereafter grant to their nationals, as well as the rights specially granted by this Convention.
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/
Which means that English authors shall enjoy the US rights in the US... and that his work is protected for the normal delay even when it was published before 1954.
Le 23 mai 05 à 19:49, Delirium a écrit :
David Newton wrote:
So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
Certainly good news! The copyright laws are rather complex, so I suppose it's not impossible that they could in theory lay a claim to more than 50 years under, say, U.S. copyright law for material published in the U.S. To avoid that possibility, it may be worth archiving this response somewhere, since "the copyright owner explicitly told me I could use it" is a reasonably good defense against copyright-infringement claims, and at the very least would likely severely mitigate any damages that might ever arise.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
However, the U.S. was not a signatory of the Berne Convention until 1989, and the terms of the convention, appear to state that it is not to be applied retroactively.
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
We talked about it on IRC a few days ago and I am sorry but I must send some bad news here :
Under the Bern Convention, article 5(1) : Authors shall enjoy, in respect of works for which they are protected under this Convention, in countries of the Union other than the country of origin, the rights which their respective laws do now or may hereafter grant to their nationals, as well as the rights specially granted by this Convention.
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/
Which means that English authors shall enjoy the US rights in the US... and that his work is protected for the normal delay even when it was published before 1954.
Le 23 mai 05 à 19:49, Delirium a écrit :
David Newton wrote:
So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
Certainly good news! The copyright laws are rather complex, so I suppose it's not impossible that they could in theory lay a claim to more than 50 years under, say, U.S. copyright law for material published in the U.S. To avoid that possibility, it may be worth archiving this response somewhere, since "the copyright owner explicitly told me I could use it" is a reasonably good defense against copyright-infringement claims, and at the very least would likely severely mitigate any damages that might ever arise.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
However, the U.S. was not a signatory of the Berne Convention until 1989, and the terms of the convention, appear to state that it is not to be applied retroactively.
Unfortunately, that is irrevelant since the Bern Convention is mainly a conflict-law convention written in order to know what law to apply to new cases where there is an international element.
Typically when an English author wants to be protected in the US.
It does not apply to a given work as copyright law does. It regulates conflict between copyright laws of different countries and it applies to cases, not to works.
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
We talked about it on IRC a few days ago and I am sorry but I must send some bad news here :
Under the Bern Convention, article 5(1) : Authors shall enjoy, in respect of works for which they are protected under this Convention, in countries of the Union other than the country of origin, the rights which their respective laws do now or may hereafter grant to their nationals, as well as the rights specially granted by this Convention.
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/
Which means that English authors shall enjoy the US rights in the US... and that his work is protected for the normal delay even when it was published before 1954.
Le 23 mai 05 à 19:49, Delirium a écrit :
David Newton wrote:
So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
Certainly good news! The copyright laws are rather complex, so I suppose it's not impossible that they could in theory lay a claim to more than 50 years under, say, U.S. copyright law for material published in the U.S. To avoid that possibility, it may be worth archiving this response somewhere, since "the copyright owner explicitly told me I could use it" is a reasonably good defense against copyright-infringement claims, and at the very least would likely severely mitigate any damages that might ever arise.
-Mark
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Jean-Baptiste Soufron wrote:
However, the U.S. was not a signatory of the Berne Convention until 1989, and the terms of the convention, appear to state that it is not to be applied retroactively.
Unfortunately, that is irrevelant since the Bern Convention is mainly a conflict-law convention written in order to know what law to apply to new cases where there is an international element.
Typically when an English author wants to be protected in the US.
It does not apply to a given work as copyright law does. It regulates conflict between copyright laws of different countries and it applies to cases, not to works.
I can't understand how you have concluded this. The Berne Convention does so much more than simply settle questions of jurisdiction.
Take a look at Article 18(1):
"(1) This Convention shall apply to all works which, at the moment of its coming into force, have not yet fallen into the public domain in the country of origin through the expiry of the term of protection."
How do you suppose that it has no bearing on particular works?
David Newton said:
So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
Great news! I have updated the copyrights page on English Wikipedia to say so, quoting a bit of the email reply you got (fair use, of course...)
David Newton (davidp.newton@gmail.com) [050524 03:40]:
So, it appears that Crown copyright material that has been published in 1954 or earlier is considered public domain worldwide by OPSI and is thus fair game for the Wikipedia to use.
Are Ordnance Survey maps from 1854 or before Crown Copyright? Because if they are now public domain, Open Streetmap (http://openstreetmap.org/) would probably love to know.
- d.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org