05-09-2010, 08:42 PM | #1 |
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Copyright length in various countries
My recollection is that copyright is a contract, of sorts, between the holder and the government whereby the government grants protection in exchange for the protected work eventually coming into the public domain.
Another poster started a discussion about a site that posts books that are still in copyright in the US, and perhaps in Canada. I recall that in the last decade the US extended the copyright period to life in being from 50 to 75 or 100 years. I know the time period is substantially less in Canada. I gather that Australia also has a shorter period that the US. Are there treaties between nations about this? If so, what is the shortest length any Nation can have and still be part of a treaty? My primary question is this, If there is a nation whose laws are very short (say 5 or 10years after death of author) would it be permitted to discuss that here since it might be illegal in the US and Canada? Last edited by advocate2; 05-09-2010 at 08:44 PM. |
05-10-2010, 03:35 AM | #2 |
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The Berne Convention is the big international treaty concerned with literary copyright. There are a bunch of other treaties dealing with other forms of copyright.
As with most international treaties, each country kind of "does its own thing" within the broadest possible interpretation of the treaty terms. There's a a nice, short article on the Berne Convention over on Wikipedia. |
05-10-2010, 09:44 AM | #3 |
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thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Good old Wikipedia led me to the following link which gives a country by country breakdown:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...pyright_length The shortest length of copyright appears to be life in being plus 25 years. Given that it is legal to post a pre-1985 book in those countries, is a US reader breaking the law if he or she downloads a book from a server in one of those countries? I am somewhat confused as to what is legal and what is illegal. |
05-10-2010, 11:07 AM | #4 |
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Yes. When you are in the US, US law is what applies to you. If you were to travel to that country, and download the book from there, that would be legal. You could even bring it home with you, and you'd still be fine. But, as far as downloading is concerned, it's your location that determines what laws apply to you, not the location of the server.
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05-10-2010, 12:24 PM | #5 |
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Actually, copyright is more analogous to a property title than to a contract. It's not an exact analogy of course, but nothing ever is.
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05-10-2010, 05:53 PM | #6 | |
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Quote:
Completely retarded, but that's not surprising given the state of copyright law. |
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05-10-2010, 06:22 PM | #7 | |
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Quote:
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05-10-2010, 06:38 PM | #8 | |
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Quote:
It's unclear if *downloading* is illegal, or if uploading is. If they're uploaded to a legal country's servers, the only potential crime could be some variant of "inciting" copyright violation, which would be hard to prove. Whether downloading is a crime/tort depends on some fuzzy things; several criminal copyright laws mention a minimum number of copies before the penalties kick in. § 602. Infringing importation or exportation of copies or phonorecords (1) Importation.—Importation into the United States, without the authority of the owner of copyright under this title, of copies or phonorecords of a work that have been acquired outside the United States is an infringement... That said--before we get into another 20-page thread about the vaguaries of copyright law--Mobileread doesn't prevent links to places that provide ebooks that are legal where they're provided. It allows Canadian-hosted ebooks that aren't PD in the US, and has a separate server for US-hosted ebooks that aren't PD in other places, and we're welcome to discuss Project Gutenberg Australia & provide links to it.(3) Exceptions.—This subsection does not apply to— (B) importation or exportation, for the private use of the importer or exporter and not for distribution, by any person with respect to no more than one copy or phonorecord of any one work at any one time.... But this would be a case of acquiring something that was entirely legal in the other country, just not legal to distribute in the US. It's legal to *own* in the US, just not legal for that provider to distribute it here. Should be on par with buying a suit in a shop in Canada that doesn't have a business license in New York--it was legal where you acquired it; it's legal to own in the US; it just isn't legal for the seller to sell it in the US. |
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05-10-2010, 06:49 PM | #9 |
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05-11-2010, 07:12 AM | #10 | |
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An addendum to Elfwreck's post from customs and border patrol.
http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/va...restricted.xml Quote:
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05-11-2010, 09:42 AM | #11 |
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That, however, is referring to so-called "pirated" goods, which are an entirely different matter. For example, the final Sherlock Holmes book, "The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes" is still under copyright protection in the US, even though it's in the public domain virtually everywhere else in the world. I can perfectly legally bring a public domain copy of this book with me from the UK to the USA, even though it wouldn't be legal for me to download it in the USA.
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05-11-2010, 10:53 AM | #12 |
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I find it the statement of law regarding importation of copyright material into the U.S. Interesting. Like so much current law dealing with the issue it was clearly written when actual hard goods, e.g. music CD's, were the issue. For a digital e-book file on a computer drive how one determine that is, or is not, for personal use only and not for sale or distribution? Never mind the fact that anyone with half a brain would know to change a file name from say twilight.epub to mynotes.txt.
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05-11-2010, 02:05 PM | #13 |
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Customs law is almost as vague & contradictory as copyright law, either lacking definitions (such as what constitutes personal use) or with definitions that allow easy circumvention. Their approach is often to seize questionable goods & let you sue for recovery but, as with most law enforcement, whether or not to actually enforce a law is up to the individual officer. (I.e. if they don't want to enforce the law then they simply "don't notice" the violation.)
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