Ron Unz, a long-time Wikimedia supporter, alerted me to this personal project that he's been working on for a long time:
It's an archive of periodicals, books, and videos, some of which hosted there, some externally.
Examples:
http://www.unz.org/Publication/SaturdayRev http://www.unz.org/Publication/Century
Timeslice from the outbreak of WWI:
http://www.unz.org/Publication/AllArticles?Period=1914aug
According to Ron, the system contains almost 400,000 authors and their writings. A couple of examples of author pages:
http://www.unz.org/Author/MenckenHL http://www.unz.org/Author/WhartonEdith
Ron believes that the copyright situation is clear -- that either it's PD due to age, due to lack of copyright renewal, or that he has permission in some cases via licensing agreements. In any case, there's quite a bit of unambiguously public domain stuff there that I haven't seen digitized elsewhere, and it should be useful as a research library for Wikipedians as well.
Cheers, Erik
This is an interesting and useful site, but prohibiting the electronic reproduction of the content, even as it applies to material that is indisputably in the public domain is not on the spirit of open software.
Ray
On 12/01/11 5:15 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
Ron Unz, a long-time Wikimedia supporter, alerted me to this personal project that he's been working on for a long time:
It's an archive of periodicals, books, and videos, some of which hosted there, some externally.
Examples:
http://www.unz.org/Publication/SaturdayRev http://www.unz.org/Publication/Century
Timeslice from the outbreak of WWI:
http://www.unz.org/Publication/AllArticles?Period=1914aug
According to Ron, the system contains almost 400,000 authors and their writings. A couple of examples of author pages:
http://www.unz.org/Author/MenckenHL http://www.unz.org/Author/WhartonEdith
Ron believes that the copyright situation is clear -- that either it's PD due to age, due to lack of copyright renewal, or that he has permission in some cases via licensing agreements. In any case, there's quite a bit of unambiguously public domain stuff there that I haven't seen digitized elsewhere, and it should be useful as a research library for Wikipedians as well.
Cheers, Erik
Agreed with Ray here, the watermarking and "licencing agreement" for stuff that's public domain is a bit of a turnoff. Otherwise, it would be great to cross-reference what Wikisource has and what this site has, find out what he has that we don't, and take steps to correct that ;-)
Cheers, Craig
On 3 December 2011 09:58, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
This is an interesting and useful site, but prohibiting the electronic reproduction of the content, even as it applies to material that is indisputably in the public domain is not on the spirit of open software.
Ray
On 12/01/11 5:15 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
Ron Unz, a long-time Wikimedia supporter, alerted me to this personal project that he's been working on for a long time:
It's an archive of periodicals, books, and videos, some of which hosted there, some externally.
Examples:
http://www.unz.org/Publication/SaturdayRev http://www.unz.org/Publication/Century
Timeslice from the outbreak of WWI:
http://www.unz.org/Publication/AllArticles?Period=1914aug
According to Ron, the system contains almost 400,000 authors and their writings. A couple of examples of author pages:
http://www.unz.org/Author/MenckenHL http://www.unz.org/Author/WhartonEdith
Ron believes that the copyright situation is clear -- that either it's PD due to age, due to lack of copyright renewal, or that he has permission in some cases via licensing agreements. In any case, there's quite a bit of unambiguously public domain stuff there that I haven't seen digitized elsewhere, and it should be useful as a research library for Wikipedians as well.
Cheers, Erik
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One of his features is the ability to find magazine articles quickly. Having the material there, on Wikisource, or elsewhere has limited value if people can't find it easily. The other thing that needs working on is a system of cross-linking within and between projects. Having material at more than one site also helps to protect its availability.
Ray
On 12/02/11 9:12 PM, Craig Franklin wrote:
Agreed with Ray here, the watermarking and "licencing agreement" for stuff that's public domain is a bit of a turnoff. Otherwise, it would be great to cross-reference what Wikisource has and what this site has, find out what he has that we don't, and take steps to correct that ;-)
Cheers, Craig
On 3 December 2011 09:58, Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net mailto:saintonge@telus.net> wrote:
This is an interesting and useful site, but prohibiting the electronic reproduction of the content, even as it applies to material that is indisputably in the public domain is not on the spirit of open software. Ray On 12/01/11 5:15 PM, Erik Moeller wrote: > Ron Unz, a long-time Wikimedia supporter, alerted me to this personal > project that he's been working on for a long time: > > http://www.unz.org/ > > It's an archive of periodicals, books, and videos, some of which > hosted there, some externally. > > Examples: > > http://www.unz.org/Publication/SaturdayRev > http://www.unz.org/Publication/Century > > Timeslice from the outbreak of WWI: > > http://www.unz.org/Publication/AllArticles?Period=1914aug > > According to Ron, the system contains almost 400,000 authors and their > writings. A couple of examples of author pages: > > http://www.unz.org/Author/MenckenHL > http://www.unz.org/Author/WhartonEdith > > Ron believes that the copyright situation is clear -- that either it's > PD due to age, due to lack of copyright renewal, or that he has > permission in some cases via licensing agreements. In any case, > there's quite a bit of unambiguously public domain stuff there that I > haven't seen digitized elsewhere, and it should be useful as a > research library for Wikipedians as well. > > Cheers, > Erik >
Further to this, a key resource is the Online Books Page, http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/serials.html This is really helpful for the older stuff.
Unz has a tremendous amount of more modern material, and I would have concerns about the legitimacy of his having the material. For example "The Anglo-Soviet Journal" was published in England from 1940 until 1992, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Unz has a broken run of issues between 1940 and 1974. Who would have been in a position to license his use of the material? Looking at the title page for the Spring 1965 issue the ASJ allowed reproduction of its contents, but did its contributors necessarily agree to this or give up their copyrights? It all makes me wonder how much of his material is infringing.
For ourselves, it would make sense to be careful. In the broader scheme of things the situation bears watching. Do the authors of the articles even give a damn? I suspect that few if any with standing will ever complain. Those few can easily be accommodated. It makes one wonder about the benefit to being purists about respecting copyrights.
Ray
On 12/02/11 9:12 PM, Craig Franklin wrote:
Agreed with Ray here, the watermarking and "licencing agreement" for stuff that's public domain is a bit of a turnoff. Otherwise, it would be great to cross-reference what Wikisource has and what this site has, find out what he has that we don't, and take steps to correct that ;-)
Cheers, Craig
On 3 December 2011 09:58, Ray Saintonge wrote:
This is an interesting and useful site, but prohibiting the electronic reproduction of the content, even as it applies to material that is indisputably in the public domain is not on the spirit of open software. Ray
Ray Saintonge, 04/12/2011 02:27:
For ourselves, it would make sense to be careful. In the broader scheme of things the situation bears watching. Do the authors of the articles even give a damn? I suspect that few if any with standing will ever complain. Those few can easily be accommodated. It makes one wonder about the benefit to being purists about respecting copyrights.
We put a way stronger stress on the "free" part indeed. archive.org archives the whole internet and all sorts of stuff which are obviously copyrighted, but the pseudo-delete ("dark" and keep in their system for the future) any time an author requests to do so even if without legitimate reason. Very few do.
Nemo
On 07/18/12 12:01 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
Ray Saintonge, 04/12/2011 02:27:
For ourselves, it would make sense to be careful. In the broader scheme of things the situation bears watching. Do the authors of the articles even give a damn? I suspect that few if any with standing will ever complain. Those few can easily be accommodated. It makes one wonder about the benefit to being purists about respecting copyrights.
We put a way stronger stress on the "free" part indeed. archive.org archives the whole internet and all sorts of stuff which are obviously copyrighted, but the pseudo-delete ("dark" and keep in their system for the future) any time an author requests to do so even if without legitimate reason. Very few do.
Another thing to keep in mind is that "free" is also a verb. We generate more freedom by giving an opportunity for the owners of older rights to express themselves, or allow the rights to lapse by doing nothing. Contrast this with maintaining protections out of fear.
Ray
Ray Saintonge, 24/07/2012 02:27:
On 07/18/12 12:01 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
Ray Saintonge, 04/12/2011 02:27:
For ourselves, it would make sense to be careful. In the broader scheme of things the situation bears watching. Do the authors of the articles even give a damn? I suspect that few if any with standing will ever complain. Those few can easily be accommodated. It makes one wonder about the benefit to being purists about respecting copyrights.
We put a way stronger stress on the "free" part indeed. archive.org archives the whole internet and all sorts of stuff which are obviously copyrighted, but the pseudo-delete ("dark" and keep in their system for the future) any time an author requests to do so even if without legitimate reason. Very few do.
Another thing to keep in mind is that "free" is also a verb. We generate more freedom by giving an opportunity for the owners of older rights to express themselves, or allow the rights to lapse by doing nothing. Contrast this with maintaining protections out of fear.
Maybe, but this is either something I disagree with or a characteristic of English that I don't like. Let's say we put a stress on the "copyleft" part of the job then.
Nemo
On 07/23/12 11:49 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
Ray Saintonge, 24/07/2012 02:27:
On 07/18/12 12:01 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) wrote:
Ray Saintonge, 04/12/2011 02:27:
For ourselves, it would make sense to be careful. In the broader scheme of things the situation bears watching. Do the authors of the articles even give a damn? I suspect that few if any with standing will ever complain. Those few can easily be accommodated. It makes one wonder about the benefit to being purists about respecting copyrights.
We put a way stronger stress on the "free" part indeed. archive.org archives the whole internet and all sorts of stuff which are obviously copyrighted, but the pseudo-delete ("dark" and keep in their system for the future) any time an author requests to do so even if without legitimate reason. Very few do.
Another thing to keep in mind is that "free" is also a verb. We generate more freedom by giving an opportunity for the owners of older rights to express themselves, or allow the rights to lapse by doing nothing. Contrast this with maintaining protections out of fear.
Maybe, but this is either something I disagree with or a characteristic of English that I don't like. Let's say we put a stress on the "copyleft" part of the job then.
In English we already had to make the difference between "free as in beer" and "free as in speech".
"Copyleft, as I understand it, in the SA part of the Creative Commons licences. It requires those who use work that is under a copyleft licence to license the results under the same licence.
When the copyright status of a work is unclear, as with an orphan work, we have no right to attach any licences at all, anymore than on PD works. It is with these works of uncertain status that I am more concerned. Doing so outside of the WMF umbrella gives a lot more flexibility. It allows steps that will make those works free.
One of my complaints about the Unz site is that it forbids reproduction of any of its contents, including material that is clearly in the public domain.
Ray
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