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

[John Vandenberg]

On Fri, Feb 24, 2012 at 4:37 AM, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 3:52 AM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> On English Wikisource, we consider these to be public domain.
>> We tag them that as public domain and explain why.
>>
>> https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:PD-Ethiopia
>> https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:PD-Iran
>> https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:PD-Iraq
>
> I didn't know Wikisource did this.  This would seem to imply that
> Wikisource is willing to import virtually any text at all from these
> countries, which seems like an ethically bad idea to me, for much the
> same reason that importing all possible images on Wikipedia seems like
> a bad idea.
>
> However, setting aside the ethical issues for the moment, it is
> important to note that these templates are frankly very incomplete,
> which makes their conclusions potentially erroneous.
>
> Under US copyright law (and more generally the Berne Convention),
> establishing that a work is in the public domain due to a lack of
> treaty status requires meeting several requirements, and those
> templates only address the most obvious one.  These requirements are:
>
> 1) The work was first published in a country that has no copyright
> relations with the US.
> 2) None of the authors of the work are citizens of any country that
> does have copyright relations with the US.
> 3) Within thirty days of publication in the non-treaty state, the work
> was never also published in any other state that does have copyright
> relations with the US.
>
> Currently, those templates only mention the first point.  However, the
> Berne Convention extends copyright protection to all citizens of the
> treaty states regardless of where they publish (point #2), so it is
> also important to consider the nationality of the authors involved.

Feel free to update Wikisource templates too ;-)

btw, we also have
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Template:PD-Afghanistan

And these templates are occasionally discussed. e.g.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Possible_copyright_violations/Archives/2011-08#Template:PD-Afghan_.E2.80.94_its_currency_and_use

> The third point is actually the most difficult in practice, since it
> requires proving a negative.  The Berne Convention and US Copyright
> Law consider any publications occurring during the first thirty days
> to be effectively simultaneous, and authors will enjoy full protection
> under the treaty if their work was published in any country where the
> copyright treaty would apply.  It is often very difficult to determine
> with certainty that a work was never published internationally during
> that first 30 day window.  This is especially true as technology has
> made it easier for works to be widely distributed across international
> borders.  In Kernal Records OY v. Moseley (US District Court, 2011),
> the court held that putting a sound file online for download amounted
> to simultaneous publication in all countries where the internet was
> available.  Following that logic, no work first published on the
> internet could be considered as public domain due to non-treaty
> status.  However, the US case law also contains a largely
> contradictory ruling in Moberg v. Leygues (US District Court, 2009),
> involving images appearing on a German website.  So the issue of
> determining national origin in the internet age would seem to be
> somewhat unsettled in the US.
>
> However, the one thing that is clear though is that any claim to
> public domain status due to the lack of copyright relations needs to
> address all three factors raised above.  John, can you raise these
> concerns at Wikisource?

You can .. ;-)

Here is our village pump.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium

-- 
John Vandenberg