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

[Nathan]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 6:55 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki at gmail.com>wrote:

> Nathan, 22/02/2012 19:27:
>
>  In a moral sense, if we treat authors poorly because they live in a
>> country
>> where they are treated poorly, not only are we reinforcing that poor
>> treatment - we are benefiting from their disadvantage. If Iranian authors
>> were from any other of the vast majority of Berne signatory nations, they
>> would have full rights to control and benefit from their work
>> internationally. Should we benefit from their lack of freedom, over which
>> they have little influence? Or should we make the ethical decision to
>> afford them the same rights and interests that are afforded to virtually
>> everyone else in the world?
>>
>
> I can understand this reasoning from a "moral" perspective, but from a
> practical point of view (or is it just economical?) I doubt this makes much
> sense. As they already don't have any way to claim their rights outside
> their country, by redistributing their works without compensation we're not
> making them lose anything, unless we "compete" also with distribution and
> ruin their market in their home country.
> Moreover, given the embargo in Iran, does someone know if a publisher
> would even be /allowed/ to give them a compensation?
> And speaking of embargo, let me express some more concerns (might be wild
> speculations): I consider it a very controversial political action, I don't
> know if it's considered obvious and uncontroversial in the USA. I think we
> shouldn't do anything to reinforce (nor evade) the embargo, because it
> would be a political choice (or an illegal one, but that's out of question)
> – we shouldn't discuss it on this list either, I hope this is not going to
> open an off-topic flame –. If neither agreed nor non-agreed publishing is
> possible, wouldn't "respecting" the country's original copyright just be a
> way to worsen the situation of those authors, from a practical point of
> view?
> Also, I think this situation might have some precedent in some early 20th
> or 19th century copyright regulations clashes across European countries,
> which made life very hard for some authors. (This is a very vague thought:
> Emilio Salgari disappointed with English translations of his works?)
>
>
> Nemo
>
>
Don't forget - while I used Iran as an example, it isn't the only country
affected.

~Nathan