[Foundation-l] English Wikipedia considering declaring open-season on works from countries lacking US copyright relations

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2012 01:00:50 -0800, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com>
wrote:
> Short version:
> 
...
> I'm raising the issue here, because I know many people on foundation-l
> care about issues surrounding copyright and reuse, and a change like
> this could set a precedent for what we ultimately do on the other
> projects.
> 
> -Robert Rohde
> 
> 
> [1]
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-August/027373.html
> [2]
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#Usage_Option_1_Support
> [3]
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Copyrights#RfC:_What_to_do_with_respect_to_the_copyright_of_countries_with_which_the_US_does_not_have_copyright_relations.3F
> [4] http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ38a.pdf
> 

Is anybody aware of the situation on Commons with these countries? Should
I alert Commons on this discussion?

An obvious argument against treating works from these countries as PD
would be that soon or later the countries will sign the treaties and the
works would have to be removed from WM projects. At the same time, having
them temporarily as PD would obscure usual work on getting free media such
as stimulating taking photos of free buildings, contacting authors for
permissions etc.

Cheers
Yaroslav