Jean-Baptiste Soufron jbsoufron at gmail.com wrote:
Well, once again, given the Bern convention any author can enforce its rights by himself even if his work is public domain or equivalent in its own country. And the crown copyright office has no authority on this.
What will they do if such a case happens ? What kind of warranty do they provide ?
They provide the fact that THEY ADMINISTER THE COPYRIGHT WITH AN EXCLUSIVE LICENCE FROM THE HOLDER. "Where a work is made by Her Majesty or by an officer or servant of the Crown in the course of his duties" … "Her Majesty is the first owner of any copyright in the work". That is a direct quote from the British copyright legislation. All previous Crown copyright under previous copyright acts also has Her Majesty as "the first owner of any copyright in the work".
To quote from the OPSI website:
"Crown Copyright
What is Crown copyright?
Copyright material which is produced by employees of the Crown in the course of their duties. Therefore, most material originated by ministers and civil servants is protected by Crown copyright.
What is our role in managing Crown copyright?
The Director of OPSI in her role as Queen's Printer has been appointed by Her Majesty the Queen to manage all copyrights owned by the Crown on Her Majesty's behalf. OPSI's Information Policy team lincenses on the Queen's Printers behalf.
Crown copyright material originated by the Scottish Administration is managed by the Queen's Printer for Scotland (QPS). The Information Policy team of the Office of the QPS licenses on the QPS' behalf."
So the holder of the copyright, HM The Queen, has appointed the Director of OPSI to administer the copyright. Since OPSI administer the copyright THEY determine when and how it will be enforced. We have a statement in an email from one of their staff that they consider all Crown copyright in published materials to lapse at the same time worldwide as it would in the UK, ie 50 years from publication.
So the holder of the copyright, HM The Queen, has appointed the Director of OPSI to administer the copyright. Since OPSI administer the copyright THEY determine when and how it will be enforced. We have a statement in an email from one of their staff that they consider all Crown copyright in published materials to lapse at the same time worldwide as it would in the UK, ie 50 years from publication.
Given the importance of clear copyright rules on wikipedia, this statement has exactly a 0 legal value. What we should get is at least a non-exclusive license granted to wikipedia.
Also, I thought we were not only talking about copyright of uk public servants, but about copyright of uk authors at large before 1954... ?
On 5/25/05, Jean-Baptiste Soufron jbsoufron@gmail.com wrote:
Given the importance of clear copyright rules on wikipedia, this statement has exactly a 0 legal value. What we should get is at least a non-exclusive license granted to wikipedia.
Also, I thought we were not only talking about copyright of uk public servants, but about copyright of uk authors at large before 1954... ?
We were discussing only Crown Copyright; i.e. UK government-owned copyright.
-Matt (User:Morven)
On 5/25/05, Jean-Baptiste Soufron jbsoufron@gmail.com wrote:
Given the importance of clear copyright rules on wikipedia, this statement has exactly a 0 legal value. What we should get is at least a non-exclusive license granted to wikipedia.
I fail to see why the explicit statement: "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", from an official representative of the copyright holder, would not be considered permission.
-Matt (User:Morven)
I fail to see why the explicit statement: "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", from an official representative of the copyright holder, would not be considered permission.
I was thinking this was adressing to all material published before 1954, not only to crown copyright material published in 1954 and before.
If that's the case, I guess everything is ok then.
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