[Wikimedia-l] Copyright information not digitised?

[Federico Leva (Nemo)]

Kim Bruning, 23/06/2012 21:55:
> According to:
> 	http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120330/12402418305/why-missing-20th-century-books-is-even-worse-than-it-seems.shtml
>
> a lot of books have an uncertain copyright status, because the Copyright Office records have not been
> digitized yet.

This seems just a tiny part of the problem of uncertain copyright status...

>
> Is this true? Would offering to help digitize these records fit in our mission
> (especially wrt WikiSource) ?

Surely not. On the other hand, it's comparable to the orphan works issue 
(you can't be forced to an unlimited effort/expense just to determine 
whether someone can ask you something), which is worth working on. 
Aren't ALA and so on active on this front, as their European equivalents 
are for the orphan works problem?

Nemo