[Foundation-l] Stroop report

[Birgitte SB]

--- Lars Aronsson <lars at aronsson.se> wrote:

> 
> > On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 2:58 PM, Yann Forget
> <yann at forget-me.net> wrote:
> 
> > > 2009, 60 years after Gandhi's death. The
> translator is Hélène 
> > > Hart, she never wrote nor translated anything
> else beside this 
> > > book, and her date of death is not known, even
> to the French 
> > > National Library (BNF). I personaly called the
> BNF to ask for 
> > > details. The book was published only once in
> 1924, and is out 
> > > of print since then. If even the BNF does not
> know anything 
> > > about Hélène Hart, I doubt anybody else knows
> it.
> 
> I understand that Swedish book publishers in cases
> like these 
> publish the book anyway, and if the copyright holder
> contacts them 
> later there is a standard compensation paid out,
> based on the 
> number of sold copies.  This means that the
> copyright holder who 
> comes too late and makes the claim after publication
> can get 
> compensated but can't negotiate the price and can't
> veto the 
> publication. For the publisher it's not hard to do
> the math: Just 
> set aside the small amount of money for every
> printed copy.  This 
> is apparently a workable solution for the book
> printing business.

I feel I have replied too much to this thread but you
raise something that really gets to the heart of the
matter.  What you describe above is pretty much what
the "Orphans Works" reports recommended to US
lawmakers.  They did not recommend that orphan works
become PD, but rather to set a cap on royalties of
works were a reasonable effort to locate the copyright
holder failed.  So if someone comes forward after
publication the publisher had known in advance what
his maximum financial risk was.

This is a practical solution for most people but not
for an organization with an idealistic position like
WMF.  These works could be described as "practically
free".  You could treat for all intents and purposes
like free content with practically no risk.  But as
long as the WMF defines free content in idealistic
terms rather than practical ones, they are outside the
boundaries.  

Wikisource has had one copyright fork for sometime, I
heard another is being started. The fork is maintained
by people who are still dedicated to Wikisource,
linked to by Wikisource, and a common destination of
copyright deletions. While one of the main features of
the fork I am familiar with is the server's location
in Canada, it also takes a softer line on free
content. So far the en.WP policy on images makes a
similar fork for Commons unnecessary.  But I just want
to point out that the WMF may not be our answer to
hosting these sort of works, and if they are not it is
OK. The world doesn't end if you have to supplement
the collection off of WMF servers.

Birgitte SB


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