Hi, Some explanations/clarifications here : - applicable law is a millennia old unsolved nightmare, but to make it short, both US and local laws are applicable on Wikimedia Commons. - when you say "Finnegans Wake by James Joyce", what are you talking about exactly? There are a lot of editions, with a lot of corresponding copyright (and I would say that some - if not most - of them are already public domain in both the local country and US). Who is the translator? What is the publication date in the US? Was there a copyright notice? - "internet barrier" is indeed not possible (hence my first point) - "a German subsidiary legal entity" (or any/all other countries) has already been discussed many times, in the end it's just not feasible (see previous point) nor realistic (US law is probably still applicable anyway).
PS: in any case, it will clearly be public domain in the US in 2035, which is quite soon (we have files marked to undelete as far as 2160 on Commons/Wikisource ;) ) and there is a lot more other work to transcribe on Wikisource meanwhile. Cheers, Nicolas Le mer. 1 juin 2022 à 21:56, J Hayes <[email protected]> a écrit : > > Yes, there was a wikilivres project in Canada (pma +50) but it fizzled out. > There have also been attempts to have a local EDP or “fair use” of the lesser > term, but that would be up to the local wikisource community. (English has > resisted this) > Other institutions have transcription efforts not constrained by commons > copyright rules. For example, transcribed si.org > Sorry about that > Jim hayes > > On Wed, Jun 1, 2022 at 10:05 AM Julius Hamilton <[email protected]> > wrote: >> >> Hey, >> >> From what I understand WikiSource’s servers are located in the US and must >> therefore follow US Copyright. >> >> I would like a much deeper understanding of how copyright is upheld online >> since it’s so easy to access “foreign” websites, of course. >> >> I would like to upload a book - Finnegans Wake by James Joyce - to >> WikiSource. It’s out of copyright in Europe but on the US, because they have >> different copyright lengths. >> >> If we assume US copyright law applying to servers physically located in the >> US, that much makes sense. But is there a law that people in the US cannot >> access those same materials on foreign servers where they are not >> copyrighted? If that’s actually a law, how do they enforce that? They would >> need to stick up some kind of internet barrier, internet censorship. Is that >> legal? How could they achieve it? Wouldn’t they basically have to get >> internet service providers to block a certain domain or something? So… the >> government would say, “We heard foreign site X is serving copyrighted >> material to American citizens; block that site for all Americans”? And then >> the foreign site would respond (to get unblocked) by checking the location >> of whoever’s requesting their webpage and probably specifically limit >> content depending on region, to comply with the government? (In which case >> the user could use a VPN.) >> >> What about where a company is registered? >> >> Can Wikisource.de - if it’s actually hosted in Germany - host Finnegans Wake >> even if Wikisource is perhaps trademarked in the US or something? >> >> Does the law work that way, that a company registered in one country is >> responsible for complying with copyright law internationally? (I assume so, >> it sounds likely). >> >> Anyway: if we cannot host Finnegans Wake on Wikisource.de, is there any good >> workaround? Wikipedia is a very international phenomenon, it would be too >> bad if it only were ruled by American law. Can’t we create a German >> subsidiary legal entity for it or something? >> >> Thanks very much, >> Julius >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikisource-l mailing list -- [email protected] >> To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] > > _______________________________________________ > Wikisource-l mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] _______________________________________________ Wikisource-l mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
