Project Gutenberg Australia

[ballast]

I have found several books on this site that were unavailable on Project Gutenberg USA - sometimes because of copyright issues.

http://gutenberg.net.au/

[pietvo]

Project Gutenberg only stores ebooks that were prepared under the Gutenberg project. There are other sources of books, including private persons that scan books. That's one source of difference. The other one is the fact that MR stores the books in Canada, which has life+50 copyright. Australia used to have that too, but has changed to life+70, but this does not apply to books that were already out of copyright at the time of the change. There may also be some other minor differences in the copyright.

[HarryT]

Please remember that you are breaking copyright law if you download a book which is not in the public domain in your country.

[Zetmolm]

That's not true for all countries, Harry. Here in the Netherlands, I can download books that are not in the public domain here without breaking any law.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by pietvo

Australia used to have that too, but has changed to life+70, but this does not apply to books that were already out of copyright at the time of the change. There may also be some other minor differences in the copyright.

There is. If the author died before 1955, then life+50 applies.

I believe Australian copyright duration was altered as a condition of the free trade agreement with the US. Though I often wonder about the true definition of "free".

[pietvo]

Originally Posted by sabredog

There is. If the author died before 1955, then life+50 applies.

That's what my sentence meant:

but this does not apply to books that were already out of copyright at the time of the change.

The change was in 2005

[calvin-c]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

That's not true for all countries, Harry. Here in the Netherlands, I can download books that are not in the public domain here without breaking any law.

To put Harry's words another way, the jurisdiction you're in when you download the book is the law which applies. Whether it be copyright law or a law about downloading. (An exception might be for diplomats. I don't think so, but it might. Embassies and consulates have extra-territoriality so, if you're in one of them when you download you're technically in that country. But even a diplomat outside his embassy is 'subject' to the host country's laws-the only thing diplomatic immunity does is limit the penalties the host country can apply. That is, they can either kick the diplomat out or ignore the crime. And that's about it, unless the diplomat's country allows the host country to prosecute, i.e. waives diplomatic immunity for the crime.)

If you're correct then I suspect that Netherland's download law says that the laws of the jurisdiction from which you're downloading will apply-at least regarding copyright. But that doesn't change the fact that you're still subject to Netherland's law if you're downloading while in the Netherlands.

[neilmarr]

Yup, Calvin. Unlike shipped treebooks where point-of-sale is point of dispatch, ebooks' point-of-sale (also for freebies) is considered to be the point of download and local copyright regulations apply. Cheers.

[Zetmolm]

@calvin-c
Sure, Netherlands laws apply when downloading in the Netherlands, and Netherlands law allows me to download any movie, book or piece of music I can find on the internet, whether or not it was uploaded legally and regardless of what country I'm downloading from. Perhaps unbelievable, but it's really as simple as that.

It works like this: Dutch law allows us to make a 'backup' of books, movies and mp3s, but there is no requirement that you actually own a legal copy before you're allowed to make this backup. A download from the Internet is considered such a backup. In other words, I'm allowed to make backups of materials I don't own.

The Dutch government has announced that over time they will make downloading materials from illegal sources also illegal, but they won't do so until adequate legal alternatives are available. Current webshops are certainly not considered adequate alternatives. So it's up to the entertainment industry now to do something about their business models. As long as they don't, we can download what we want.

(This only applies to music, books and movies. For games and software other laws apply. You are not allowed to download those from illegal sources.)

[pietvo]

Originally Posted by Zetmolm

It works like this: Dutch law allows us to make a 'backup' of books, movies and mp3s, but there is no requirement that you actually own a legal copy before you're allowed to make this backup. A download from the Internet is considered such a backup. In other words, I'm allowed to make backups of materials I don't own.

Backup is a different matter. In the article of the law that applies it is called `reproduction'. You are allowed to make a reproduction (as you write indeed not of software and games), but a reasonable fee has to be paid. The fee is paid in the form of a levy on the media where the copy is stored. The law is behind the technology as up to now the levy is only on CD-R's and DVD-R's which of course are less and less used. The media industry would like to have the levy on all storage devices, but they couldn't agree on it with the computer industry. Of course many hard disks are used for business purposes and they would also get the levy, thereby increasing the price of all computers. However in France (and I think Spain) they do have this already.

The EU leaves its members the choice to either have a levy or forbid private copying. Or even both but that would lead to a big public outcry, I suppose.