Hi,
Some explanations/clarifications here :
- applicable law is a millennia old unsolved nightmare, but to make it
short, both US and local laws are applicable on Wikimedia Commons.
- when you say "Finnegans Wake by James Joyce", what are you talking
about exactly? There are a lot of editions, with a lot of
corresponding copyright (and I would say that some - if not most - of
them are already public domain in both the local country and US). Who
is the translator? What is the publication date in the US? Was there a
copyright notice?
- "internet barrier" is indeed not possible (hence my first point)
- "a German subsidiary legal entity" (or any/all other countries) has
already been discussed many times, in the end it's just not feasible
(see previous point) nor realistic (US law is probably still
applicable anyway).
PS: in any case, it will clearly be public domain in the US in 2035,
which is quite soon (we have files marked to undelete as far as 2160
on Commons/Wikisource ;) ) and there is a lot more other work to
transcribe on Wikisource meanwhile.
Cheers,
Nicolas
Le mer. 1 juin 2022 à 21:56, J Hayes <slowking4(a)gmail.com> a écrit :
>
> Yes, there was a wikilivres project in Canada (pma +50) but it fizzled out.
> There have also been attempts to have a local EDP or “fair use” of the lesser term,
but that would be up to the local wikisource community. (English has resisted this)
> Other institutions have transcription efforts not constrained by commons copyright
rules. For example, transcribed
si.org
> Sorry about that
> Jim hayes
>
> On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 10:05 AM Julius Hamilton <juliushamilton100(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
>>
>> Hey,
>>
>> From what I understand WikiSource’s servers are located in the US and must
therefore follow US Copyright.
>>
>> I would like a much deeper understanding of how copyright is upheld online since
it’s so easy to access “foreign” websites, of course.
>>
>> I would like to upload a book - Finnegans Wake by James Joyce - to WikiSource.
It’s out of copyright in Europe but on the US, because they have different copyright
lengths.
>>
>> If we assume US copyright law applying to servers physically located in the US,
that much makes sense. But is there a law that people in the US cannot access those same
materials on foreign servers where they are not copyrighted? If that’s actually a law, how
do they enforce that? They would need to stick up some kind of internet barrier, internet
censorship. Is that legal? How could they achieve it? Wouldn’t they basically have to get
internet service providers to block a certain domain or something? So… the government
would say, “We heard foreign site X is serving copyrighted material to American citizens;
block that site for all Americans”? And then the foreign site would respond (to get
unblocked) by checking the location of whoever’s requesting their webpage and probably
specifically limit content depending on region, to comply with the government? (In which
case the user could use a VPN.)
>>
>> What about where a company is registered?
>>
>> Can Wikisource.de - if it’s actually hosted in Germany - host Finnegans Wake even
if Wikisource is perhaps trademarked in the US or something?
>>
>> Does the law work that way, that a company registered in one country is
responsible for complying with copyright law internationally? (I assume so, it sounds
likely).
>>
>> Anyway: if we cannot host Finnegans Wake on Wikisource.de, is there any good
workaround? Wikipedia is a very international phenomenon, it would be too bad if it only
were ruled by American law. Can’t we create a German subsidiary legal entity for it or
something?
>>
>> Thanks very much,
>> Julius
>>
>>
>>
>>
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