Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Are you suggesting that every site which offers public domain books for download should be required to have a detailed knowledge of what is and is not in the public domain in every country in the world?
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I'd say that any site that distributes PD books is responsible for what they distribute.
I'd also say that they pretty much have all the data they need. (See below.)
Keep in mind that I do view these entities as providing a valuable public service, and they should be supported. I also recognize that because of the variations in copyright terms, it is an extremely difficult task to manage, and that in at least some cases the rights holders will be strict and/or unpleasant.
However, this does
NOT absolve PD distributors of their legal responsibilities. A charity that provides medical care, for example, is still obligated to obey the laws in the jurisdictions where it performs its works.
In terms of tracking: The sites already have databases that include the author's name and the publication date. I presume they already have the date of the author's death in their database, since that information often shows up on the website. So, you add one table with "country" and "copyright length," set up the queries, feed that into an IP geolocator on the web server, and Bob's Yer Uncle.
Implementing this would not be easy or free, nor would it be bullet-proof -- nor should my brief conceptual sketch be viewed as an attempt to downplay the various difficulties. But it can definitely be done, and once it's set up, it doesn't require any more supervision or maintenance than anything else in their databases.
At a minimum, a site should try to respond to a notification of a conflict.