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I find all this enormously confusing.
Why should any specific work be public domain in one country and not in another? It was most probably only created in one country, shouldn't the laws of this country apply?
Say I am in Greece. I realize that the greek translation of a book has a different copyright than the original and that is fair. But if I want to read the original of say, an australian author, why should the greek copyright laws apply, and not the australian ones? It's a book written by a non-greek, in a different country, in a different language, most probably not even available in greece at all.
Is there some underlying logic in all this that I just can't see?
And as ggareau suggested, if I travel to canada and create a graphic novel based on a book that is public domain there, I have the right to do it. Then I make it freely available on the internet, on a canadian server. Anyone not currently in canada who goes to my website and reads it is breaking the law? Even me, if I travel away from canada again, can I not read my own graphic novel? Isn't it absurd? Or is it just me?
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