On Fri, May 26, 2006 at 01:03:50AM -0500, David Starner wrote:
On 5/26/06, Greg Newby <gbnewby@pglaf.org> wrote:
If an eBooks is public domain in the US, then the scans are too. Even people outside of the US cannot (or at least, not successfully) claim PG can't redistribute them...or anyone else for that matter. I've saved some of our escapades on such issues: http://cand.pglaf.org/
I think he was more worried about the content provider's liability. I suspect a copyright holder could get very annoyed about one or two of the books I have provided to DP-EU, but I've personally chosen to have no public connection to those books.
Understood, and that's a good approach. Laws in other countries (France & Germany leap right to mind) can be pretty different than the US about their approach to such things.
However
We are unaware of any case where copyright laws of another country impacts public domain status in the US.
is not 100% true. To be pedantic, there are rule 6 clearances possible based on a non-US work not being in copyright in its home country when the URAA was passed.
Sure, I understand about that, and didn't type a very precise message. A more precise attempt: If a book is public domain in the US (including under GATT/URAA etc.), then we (PG and US-based persons) get to treat it as public domain. This is regardless of whether it might still be copyrighted elsewhere. This is upsetting to many copyright holders (including those with copyrights in the US, but for items that are public domain elsewhere). http://cand.pglaf.org for a few examples. -- Greg