[Wikipedia-l] Re: Copyright question

[Richard Grevers]

On 31 Dec 2002 13:56:03 -0800, Brion Vibber 
<brion=e+AXbWqSrlAAvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:


>
> I can't speak for New Zealand, but I'd be very surprised if knowledge of
> historical facts were subject to copyright. Otherwise, you wouldn't be
> allowed to mention anything that you heard about on the radio or TV news
> or read about in a newspaper without getting written permission and
> paying a relicensing fee... ;)
>
It certainly shouldn't be a problem in New Zealand. A year or two ago we 
were heading towards such a relaxed copyright law (academic institutions 
were to be allowed to copy quite freely) that International textbook 
publishers were threatening to make their books unavailable in New Zealand. 
I've never actually heard whether that law change was defeated.
Inceidentally (and heading OT), many books published in Britain in the 
middle of last century carried the rider "for Copyright reasons this 
edition may not be sold in the US and Canada". Does anyone know thether 
this was because there were separate territorial publishing deals, or 
because of lower legal protection in US/Canada?

-- 
Richard Grevers