Copyfraud - public domain's fate?

[Shaggy]

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?

Are you suggesting that someone who is distributing content doesn't need to worry about the legalities of copyright law in whatever country they're distributing to? If someone is going to distribute copyrighted material, you would expect them to follow copyright law, wouldn't you? Regardless of whether that distribution is physical or digital.

If they are only distributing domestically, then all they have to worry about is abiding by their local laws. If they choose to add a second country to their distribution channel, then yes, they would be expected to obey the laws of the new country that they are going to be doing business in. You can't ship a physical product to a country that it is illegal in, can you?

Just because the internet makes global distribution trivial, does not absolve someone of the need to follow and obey the laws in other countries. Does this turn into a big ugly legal mess because of all of the inconsistencies in copyright... absolutely. That's one of the reasons why current copyright laws are stupid when it comes to digital IP. Doesn't mean you can ignore it though.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

H'm. Well, they could block non-Australians for starters.

In general I support PG, but yeah, if they're going to distribute public domain works without verifying the recipient's location, unfortunately they're asking for trouble.

It's not their problem. They put up a warning and that's more than adequate.

[Shaggy]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

It's not their problem. They put up a warning and that's more than adequate.

Most "illegal" filesharing sites put up warnings too. Does that mean it's not their problem either?

The hypocrisy in some people's stance on here (particularly Harry's) is quite amazing. IE, they say filesharers are scum, but when they engage in what is effectively the exact same thing... it's not their responsibility.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Most "illegal" filesharing sites put up warnings too. Does that mean it's not their problem either?

The hypocrisy in some people's stance on here (particularly Harry's) is quite amazing. IE, they say filesharers are scum, but when they engage in what is effectively the exact same thing... it's not their responsibility.

But their content is illegal to begin with. Not so with PGA. They're offering legal content according to the copyright laws of Australia; which may or may not be legal in your country.

I see no hypocrisy here.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, Australia now has a "life + 70" copyright law, just like most other countries do. It used to be "life + 50", and when it changed, those books that were in the public domain remained so.

I guess I'm behind the times, then

Originally Posted by HarryT

The site could then be legitimately charged with encouraging and contributing to copyright infringement. It would, however, be the downloaders who were breaking copyright law, not the site.

I disagree. As far as I know, both parties are responsible.

The fact that the distributor is not in the US does not alter the fundamental fact that they are providing that US citizen with the file. Although the provider is located in Australia, if the recipient is in the US then it is US law that applies (cf Allofmp3, Kazaa).

And in US law, the infringing distributor is unquestionably responsible -- this was one reason the RIAA consistently targeted the sharers rather than the recipients.


Separately, I also remain firmly unpersuaded that a disclaimer is truly sufficient to fulfill any such legal responsibilities.

For example: Marijuana is legal as a prescription medication in California, and a misdemeanor for non-legal possession of small amounts. If I have a prescription, I can walk into a dispensary and purchase what I require. No prescription, no (legal) pot.

Now, imagine for a moment if the dispensary declared it did not need to verify the prescription, and instead just handed out flyers that summarize the law and state that verification is solely the responsibility of the patient.

Do you really think the dispensary has satisfied its responsibilities? Or that it will be immune to prosecution? Or that all of the customers will be honest, and walk away if they do not have a prescription?

Or: If Napster had included a series of disclaimers stating that "sharing copyrighted material is an infringement," do you genuinely believe that would have made any difference at all in its legal battles?

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

I disagree. As far as I know, both parties are responsible.

Are you suggesting that MobileRead take down its PD site? There's no way they have the resources to do as you suggest.

[Ankh]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

Do you really think the dispensary has satisfied its responsibilities? Or that it will be immune to prosecution? Or that all of the customers will be honest, and walk away if they do not have a prescription?

Marijuana is controlled substance, and poor example. So are nuclear materials and weapons. The trade is regulated and monitored at the level not comparable to the books.

A better example would be porn sites hosted from USA. They also use a similar "fig leaf" when it comes to the protection of the minors, which, I understand, is enforced either by the US law in general, or by laws of some of the states.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Shaggy

Are you suggesting that someone who is distributing content doesn't need to worry about the legalities of copyright law in whatever country they're distributing to

Yes, that is exactly what I'm suggesting, and that is precisely the stance taken by sites such as PG who, I'd venture to suggest, know a lot more about copyright law than you or I do. Perhaps you should be talking to PGs lawyers and telling them how wrong they are!

[Fbone]

The recent Supreme Court indirect decision (by refusing to hear the 5th Circuit Court appeal) stated that the downloader is responsible for checking that the content is not under copyright with regards to music files. The same could apply to literary works.

The judge even said that there being a copyright notice on the physical CD in retail stores was sufficient and the young lady could not be considered an "innocent infringer." Evidently, a disclaimer or warning message was not required in this case. And the location of the original file was irrelevant.

[kovidgoyal]

Make a stupid law...

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

OK, I did a tad of Googling and found this from 2004....

http://blog.librarylaw.com/libraryla..._with_the.html

Mitchell's estate did threaten to sue, and the Australian site did pull the book rather than go through the expenses of selectively blocking the book and/or dealing with lawsuits.

Yes, idiot American lawyers with no concept of Australian law did contact them.

No, they did not pull the book.

Actually looking at the source rather than what more stupid American commentary says would have told you this in five seconds.

[emellaich]

My expectation would be that Google would be able to copyright their scan's of the public domain work. In general, if you create a new form of a work, I think you could copyright that form, but not the content. On the other hand, anyone else could go back to the public domain work and scan it for their own work/copy.

Since its the form that would be protected, you could also extract the words from a Google or other edition (type them? OCR?) and create your own edition since the words are not protected -- just there form is.

Of course, this is along the line of wishful thinking. I don't have any idea what the law says. I'm just stating what I think would be right. The bottom line is that you (Google, etcetera) has some cost/time/resources (however minimal) in creating the new form and it seems that they should have ownership of the specific instance of the work, but not of the content of the work.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by emellaich

My expectation would be that Google would be able to copyright their scan's of the public domain work. In general, if you create a new form of a work, I think you could copyright that form, but not the content..

But to qualify for copyright, there must be some level of creativity involved. The US cases that have been ruled on (starting with Bridgeman v Corel) say that merely reproducing a 2D work exactly is not a creative act, and so the resulting copy does not attract its own copyright protection. However this ruling is not binding on all courts, and there is no decision that is, so until a case gets all the way to the supreme court noone knows for certain what the outcome would be.

[Krystian Galaj]

The matter would be greatly simplified if the copyright law, and patent law (but not trademarks) was abandoned altogether.

People who aren't entrenched in their beliefs in copyright can find lots of good arguments for economic losses caused by those laws, and lack of proof there's anything to be gained from them, sumarized by much better minds than me in "Against Intellectual Monopoly" book ( available here: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/genera...ainstfinal.htm , and also at Amazon, should you wish to pay homage to the copyright's golden calf ).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

But to qualify for copyright, there must be some level of creativity involved. The US cases that have been ruled on (starting with Bridgeman v Corel) say that merely reproducing a 2D work exactly is not a creative act, and so the resulting copy does not attract its own copyright protection. However this ruling is not binding on all courts, and there is no decision that is, so until a case gets all the way to the supreme court noone knows for certain what the outcome would be.

Copyright law does differ from country to country in this area. UK copyright law, for example, states that if you've expended a non-trivial amount of effort making copies of works that are in the public domain, then you hold a copyright of those specific copies that you've created (eg if you've scanned a book, nobody can copy those scans without your permssion). I understand that US copyright law has no such provision.