Gerard Hughes' statement of the situation, at
least with respect to the United States, is the
very best I've seen anywhere. (I'd been thinking
of bringing up Bridgeman v. Corel but didn't have
the depth to do the whole thing!)
Only two minor disagreements from me, one fairly
well founded I think (A), and the other, maybe
not so well founded (B) but I'm pretty careful
about the law and people's property, so I prefer
to go with it until completely convinced
otherwise:
A. Bridgeman v. Corel is a decision binding only
in one U. S. district, that has not yet been
confirmed or struck down by appellate decision.
I'd rather not test it in another....
B. My understanding of U. S. law in the matter of
foreign copyrights, is that per the 1978 overhaul
of U. S. law to harmonize it with international
law, we honor the various foreign laws with
respect to the rights originally registered in
their countries. This isn't an original
interpretation of mine, or at least I hope not,
but my reading of
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm
On my own site, I reproduce pre-1923 U. S. stuff
with no qualms (and much later stuff if I catch
them not having renewed if renewal was required);
but for works first published outside the U. S.
follow a general "death+70" rule. This leads to
what appear to be absurdities when a young author
publishes a book, then dies at 90: their
copyright extends maybe a century and a half.
I have some specific cases in mind, alas.
At any rate, the facts that (a) technical means
exist to steal stuff easily, and (b) that the
world is now so large that most theft and
plagiarism will go undetected -- don't make it
any the less theft; courts are not gulled by the
argument, nor do my own ethics, at least,
suddenly pick up their skirts and flee just by
being on the Internet.
***
My pet peeve by the way is the converse
dishonesty of not a few publishers who
appropriate either their own now public domain
material or someone else's, make some very minor
cosmetic changes (punctuation, adding three
footnotes in a large book), then claim © 2006.
They do not, of course, alert you to the specific
additions and changes, nor state that only those
are copyright and that the rest is public domain.
In effect, with smoke and mirrors, they
indefinitely extend their term of copyright. Some
very well-known publishers engage in this; and
speaking practically, there is no recourse except
to dig up the earlier edition. Sometimes, mind
you, they undo their own "work" by telling us,
separately, as a selling point, that the reprint
on which they're claiming current copyright is an
"integral reproduction" or some such term; at
which point the claim of copyright can, I think,
be ignored, both legally and morally. On my desk
as I type, a 1966 reprint by a famous scholarly
publisher, asserting 1966 copyright (which would
thus extend thru the year 2061), of an 1874
edition; fortunately, it is subtitled "Editio
Stereotypa Editionis Primae (MDCCCLXXIV)" . . . .
--
Bill Thayer
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/home.html
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