Quote:
Originally Posted by omk3
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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And this is (one of the reasons) why I think the laws as they stand are absurd and need to be changed. They just don't work in a "global" economy.
For instance, I'm a huge music fan, specifically into jazz. It's been baffling to me to see works created in the US that are 50 years old becoming public domain in the EU. I don't necessarily disagree with the 50 year limit, it's just bizzare to me to see works of artist compiled into affordable sets, across labels and time periods, in Europe when in the country of origin those same sets are technically illegal. Same thing as when I was in Tokyo and saw movies such as King Kong, Gone with the Wind and Alice in Wonderland legally being sold at newsstands in cheap unofficial versions as they are public domain in Japan. Just makes no sense to me, and I feel it's my country that is out of step with the rest of the world. (Of course, we'll see when the Beatles' records start falling into the public domain in the EU if those laws aren't magically changed. I'm not going to be shocked if they are.)