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Poster:
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 Diana Hamilton |
Date:
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June 25, 2008 07:49:51am |
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Re: Copyright Question |
*mouth hangs open*
Thanks for the link, very useful!
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Poster:
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Jim Carlile |
Date:
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June 30, 2008 02:38:17am |
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Re: Copyright Question |
Thanks.. that's great news.
Now, if only Google will use them to do copyright checks on their post 1923 scans, and then release them if they're PD! (you can never ask for too much...)
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Poster:
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anthonypaul |
Date:
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June 30, 2008 10:47:16am |
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Re: Copyright Question |
What about their pre-1923 scans that are inaccessible apart from snippits? There is a lot from the late nineteenth century.
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Poster:
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Jim Carlile |
Date:
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July 01, 2008 12:38:50am |
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Re: Copyright Question |
Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Few people have noticed this about Google.
Unlike the now-gone Microsoft Live Book Search, oftentimes Google will make their clearly pre-1923 works unavailable for full-views. There's a pattern to it-- it mostly happens when they have also scanned a later, post 1923 copyrighted version of the same work. You'll see the different versions listed, but even the full PD one will say "snippet only' or something like that.
Here's where it gets kind of sinister. Their failure to make them fully viewable violates their library scanning agreements with UC and Michigan. But the UC agreement holds a key to this mysterious failure of theirs. In article 4.3 (third sentence,) they are granted the right to license later copyrighted or mixed-content works. This means they can sell at some time an old still-copyrighted book that's probably long out of print and will never be physically republished.
With this allowance in mind, two questions should be posed to them:
1) Is this why they are so insistent on fully scanning ALL copyrighted books in the libraries (they're being sued over this right now) and,
2) Is this why they won't release many competing public domain versions of the same work, because it will destroy the market for any future licensing deals?
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Poster:
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Jim Carlile |
Date:
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July 01, 2008 02:18:42am |
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Re: Copyright Question |
P.S. to get Google off the hook a little, there is an interesting legal copyright problem concerning British authors who died after about 1945 or so. It also applies to other online American archives. It helps to explain some of Google's reluctance to make full-view scans available for pre-1923 books.
Foreign authors are now treated differently than Americans, even if their works were also published in the U.S. American copyright law follows the law of the author's country of origin. In Britain, copyright now lasts for 70 years after an author's death. It was 50 years up until 1996, when British law was harmonized with Europe.
If the works were in the public domain in 1996, they stayed in the public domain (unless they were in copyright somewhere else in Europe, if so they went back into copyright in Britain up to 70 years.)
But, because public domain was based solely upon when the author died, those who were still alive in 1946 or later had ALL of their works STILL in copyright in 1996-- even those written long before.
There are some exceptions based upon when the works were published in the U.S. as to how long after they appeared. But in some cases, it is perfectly possible for late-19th Century works to STILL be in copyright in Britain, and thus unavailable even here.
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Poster:
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Jim Carlile |
Date:
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July 01, 2008 02:46:34am |
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Re: Copyright Question |
Correction-- it's late--- instead of Late 19th Century, read after 1911. Nothing before 1911 is still in copyright in the U.K, but after 1911 many works are, because the authors lived past 1945.
Bertrand Russell, George Moore are great examples. Unlike the U.S., most of their works still carry a British copyright. In this country Congress exempted pre-1923 works from abiding by the harmonization, but there's a twilight zone of 1911-1923 English works that online archives still have to worry about.
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Poster:
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anthonypaul |
Date:
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July 01, 2008 08:52:09am |
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Re: Copyright Question |
I am just now working on a British author who died in 1934, whose copyright thus expired in 2004. A few of his books have been reissued in modern facsimile, i.e. not re-set by a publisher, so I don't any justification for his books being only in snippet view.
I wonder if the problem is that no human eye at Google looks at matters like this and makes an informed decision.I suppose there is a mis-conceived computer program that does it automatically, based on heaven-knows-what criteria, that are just wrong in the cases.
Thanks to Internet Archive and PG which does have some of his books, and failing that charity shops and Ebay!
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Poster:
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janun |
Date:
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December 17, 2008 06:13:48am |
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Re: Copyright Question |
"Nothing before 1911 is still in copyright in the U.K"
Can you explain me this affirmation?
Is very important for me.
Thanks.
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