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Re: [PGCanada] Historical look at Canadian Copyright
by Wallace J.McLean 13 Jan '05

13 Jan '05

----- Original Message ----- From: Andrew Sly <sly(a)victoria.tc.ca> Date: Thursday, January 13, 2005 1:57 pm Subject: [PGCanada] Historical look at Canadian Copyright > > A new title just released to PG, that provides a historical view > of copyright concerns about 100 years ago may be of interest: > > The copyright question : a letter to the Toronto Board > of Trade by George N. Morang > http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14673 Better yet, look up Henry Carey's "Letters on International Copyright", which is also on PG.

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if there's anything I can do ...
by Stewart C. Russell 12 Jan '05

12 Jan '05

I've been offering assistance to this (moribund?) project for some years, so I'm glad to see it has been revived. Stewart

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Michael Geist in the Toronto Star
by Wallace J.McLean 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

Michael Geist, in his latest column in the Toronto Star, issues a call- to-arms on a national on-line library. The column is available on-line for a limited time at thestar.ca (registration required.)

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Geist: National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary
by Wallace J.McLean 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

Full text distributed with Prof. Geist's kind permission: Toronto Star 2005.01.10 D03 Michael Geist Law Bytes ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- National Web library do-able, affordable, visionary ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- In the mid-1990s, Ottawa established a bold new vision for the Internet in Canada. The centrepiece was a commitment to establish national Internet access from coast to coast to coast, supported by a program that would enable the country to quickly become the first in the world to connect every single school, no matter how small or large, to the Internet. Not only did Canada meet its goal, but it completed the program ahead of schedule. As we enter the middle of this decade, the time has come for Industry Minister David Emerson and his colleagues to articulate a new future- oriented vision for the Canadian Internet. While the last decade centred on access to the Internet, the dominant issue this decade is focused on access to the content on the Internet. To address that issue, the federal government should again think big. One opportunity is to greatly expand the National Library of Canada's digital efforts by becoming the first country in the world to create a comprehensive national digital library. The library, which would be fully accessible online, would contain a digitally scanned copy of every book, government report, and legal decision ever published in Canada. A national digital library would provide unparalleled access to Canadian content in English and French along with aboriginal and heritage languages such as Yiddish and Ukrainian. The library would serve as a focal point for the Internet in Canada, providing an invaluable resource to the education system and ensuring that access to knowledge is available to everyone, regardless of economic status or geographic location. >From a cultural perspective, the library would establish an exceptional vehicle for promoting Canadian creativity to the world, leading to greater awareness of Canadian literature, science, and history. By extending the library to government documents and court decisions, it would help meet the broader societal goal of providing all Canadians with open access to their laws and government policies. Moreover, since the government holds the copyright associated with its own reports and legal decisions, it is able to grant complete, unrestricted access to all such materials immediately alongside the approximately 100,000 Canadian books that are already part of the public domain. Creating virtual libraries to complement the world's great physical libraries is already underway. Project Gutenberg, an all-volunteer initiative, has succeeded in bringing thousands of public domain texts to the Web. Last summer, the British Library unveiled an ambitious plan to digitize and freely post on the Internet thousands of historical newspapers that are now in the public domain. That plan will bring more than one million pages of history to the Internet, including work from a young Charles Dickens. Last month Google announced that it had reached agreement with several of the world's leading research libraries, including ones at Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Oxford, and the New York Public Library, to scan more than 15 million books into its search archive. Once the Google project is completed, the general public will enjoy complete, full-text access to thousands of books that are now part of the public domain because the term of copyright associated with those books has expired. For books that remain subject to copyright, Google will still scan a copy of the book, but will only grant the general public more modest access to its content, providing users with smaller excerpts of the work - a policy that is consistent with principles of fair use under copyright law. The Google project epitomizes the essence of the copyright balance. The public will benefit from unrestricted access to works in the public domain along with more limited access to other work, all without the need to seek any prior permission. Authors will still enjoy copyright protection in their work and will frequently find that greater access leads to increased commercial success. While digitally scanning more than 10 million Canadian books and documents is a daunting task, the Google project illustrates that it is financially feasible. Reports suggest that it will cost Google approximately $10 to scan each book. Assuming similar costs for a Canadian project and a five-year timeline, the $20 million annual price tag represents a fraction of the total governmental commitment toward Canadian culture and Internet development. In fact, the most significant barriers to a national digital library do not arise from fiscal challenges but rather from two potential copyright reforms currently winding their way through the system. First, the federal government is contemplating reversing the decade-old policy of avoiding Internet licensing by creating a new licensing system for Internet content that would create new restrictions to accessing online content. By proposing a very narrow definition of what can be accessed without compensation, the plan would effectively force millions of Canadian students to pay for access to content that is otherwise publicly available. Despite opposition from the education community, the proposal is marching forward, constituting a significant setback to the goal of encouraging Internet use in Canada. Given the Supreme Court of Canada's recent commitment to copyright balance and robust user rights, it is clear that for most uses no license is needed to provide schools with appropriate access to online content such as a potential national digital library. With this in mind, this proposal should be quickly scrapped. Second, the Canadian Heritage Minister Liza Frulla's Copyright Policy Branch recently announced that this year it plans to launch a public consultation on a proposal to extend the term of copyright in Canada from its current 50 years after the death of the author to at least 70 years after death (authors enjoy exclusive copyright in their work from the moment of creation until 50 years after they die). Extending the copyright term would deal a serious blow to a national digital library because it would instantly remove thousands of works from the public domain. Although the U.S. and European Union have extended their copyright terms by an additional 20 years, the vast majority of the world's population lives in countries that have not. Those countries have recognized that an extension is unsupportable from a policy perspective. It will not foster further creative activity, it is not required under international intellectual property law, and it effectively constitutes a massive transfer of wealth from the public to the heirs of a select group of copyright holders. Given the economic and societal dangers associated with a copyright term extension, even moving forward with a consultation constitutes an embarrassing case of putting the interests of a select few ahead of the public interest. A new year is traditionally a time for bold, new resolutions. As Parliamentarians return to Ottawa, they should be encouraged to seize the opportunity to establish a national vision for the Internet that will again propel Canada into a global leadership position. Supported by appropriate copyright policies, a national digital library comprised of every Canadian book ever published would provide an exceptional resource for Canadians at home as well as advantageously promote the export of Canadian culture abroad. Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca. The opinions expressed herein are personal and do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Ottawa.

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PG Canada
by James Linden 10 Jan '05

10 Jan '05

Several people have recently voice a desire to get PG Canada going. I'd like to invite them to do so. I am not currently in a place of my life that I can devote any time to PG, so I'm going to fully step aside and let everyone else go at it without me in the way. I currently have control of the projectgutenberg.ca domain, and I'll point DNS to whomever is going to host the site, just give me the DNS server names. I will be staying on the mailing lists so as to still be available if the need arises. May PG Canada succeed (and kick PG USA's butt!)... EH! Regards, James Linden http://www.kodekrash.com/ http://www.eidix.org/

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Re: [gutvol-d] PG-50/70? (fwd)
by Michael Hart 05 Jan '05

05 Jan '05

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2005 15:16:58 -0500 From: Wallace J.McLean <ag737(a)freenet.carleton.ca> Reply-To: Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> To: gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org Subject: Re: [gutvol-d] PG-50/70? We need a bulwark in the English-speaking world. We really need to set up a PG-50 in Canada. Soon. Very, very soon. ----- Original Message ----- >From Tony Baechler <tb(a)baechler.net> Date Wed, 05 Jan 2005 06:41:56 -0800 To traverso(a)dm.unipi.it, Project Gutenberg Volunteer Discussion <gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org> Subject Re: [gutvol-d] PG-50/70? Hi. Are the new posts from PG Europe going to be announced on the "posted" list as is currently done with books from PG of Australia? Also, what about getting a gutenberg.eu or gutenberg.int domain? At 12:07 PM 1/5/2005 +0100, you wrote: >Project Gutenberg Europe is starting at http://pge.rastko.net ; it is >located in serbia, hence will work as life+50 soon: currently it is >just a mirror of PG, new material from DP-EU will be uploaded quite >soon. _______________________________________________ gutvol-d mailing list gutvol-d(a)lists.pglaf.org http://lists.pglaf.org/listinfo.cgi/gutvol-d

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Lessig: The corporate welfare called copyright extension
by Michael Hart 30 Dec '04

30 Dec '04

They're Not Worthy Why extend the copyright on works that no longer have commercial value? By Lawrence Lessig Wired . Issue 13.01 - January 2005 This New Year's Day, a wonderful thing will happen in Europe that won't occur again in the US until 2019: Copyrights on music and television recordings will expire. After a half century of monopoly protection granted artists in exchange for their creative work, the public will get its justly earned free access to an extraordinary range of both famous and forgotten creativity. Libraries, archives, and even other creators can spread and build upon this creativity without asking permission first. Songs from 1953 that seniors across Europe wooed their first loves to can be streamed across the Net for free. Such a yearly event doesn't happen in the US anymore because Congress repeatedly extends the term of existing copyrights. The last extension in 1998 - the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act - was the 11th for existing works in 40 years, delaying any copyrighted song from entering the public domain for another 20 years. This practice is now inspiring copycats in Europe to similar plunder. Sir Cliff Richard - the most successful singles artist in British history - has launched a campaign in the EU to extend the term of copyright for sound recordings from 50 years to 95. Billions will be wiped from the books of European record companies, Richard warns, if governments don't act immediately. If you know anything about this debate, you might wonder why this question has come up again. (And, for that matter, if you know anything about accounting, you might be puzzled why EU record labels get to book value for assets set by law to expire.) When Congress passed the Sonny Bono Act, we were told its purpose was to "harmonize" US law with European law. Turns out - surprise! - that in the most important categories of copyright, the act made US terms longer than those of the EU. Thus the pirates of the public domain are back, arguing that the EU must lengthen its copyrights to harmonize with those of the US. And as Mexico is about to extend its terms beyond those in Europe and the US, no doubt soon we'll be hearing calls to extend our terms to match those of Mexico. This spiral will not end until governments recall a simple lesson: Monopolies are evil, even if they are a necessary evil. We rightfully grant the monopoly called copyright to inspire new creative work. But once that work has been created, there is no public justification for extending its term. The public has already paid. Term extension is just double billing. Any wealth it creates for copyright holders is swamped by the wealth the public loses in lower costs and wider access. The urge to extend terms for commercially valuable work is understandable, albeit from the public's perspective, senseless. But the way that governments extend these terms is even more senseless. Rather than limiting this corporate welfare to those works that are commercially exploited (leaving the forgotten to pass into the public domain so libraries and archives can make them available cheaply), governments uniformly extend the duration of copyrights indiscriminately. The Sonny Bono Act, for example, extended terms for works from as far back as 1923, even though, as Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer estimated in Eldred v. Ashcroft, 98 percent of the oldest works are no longer commercially available. It would be easy for governments to narrow term extension to those who want it by requiring copyright holders to pay a small fee. Even a very small fee would filter out the vast majority of works from automatic term extension. Most would enter the public domain immediately. Yet even this idea is ignored. Who can hear reason when billions are about to be wiped from the books? Governments should end this game by tinkering with copyright terms for future works only. But if they're not strong enough to stick to this simple principle, they should at least limit their damage by restricting extensions to those works from which someone might actually benefit. That someone, no doubt, won't be the public. But there's no reason to extend terms when no one - not even record companies - could possibly benefit. Filter the forgotten from term extension, and we might forgive the senselessness that inspires Sir Cliff to sing again. Email Lawrence Lessig at lawrence_lessig(a)wiredmag.com.

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Re: copyright happenings in China (fwd)
by Michael Hart 27 Dec '04

27 Dec '04

Thought that you would be interested in this as we have Peter Rabbit books in the PG library. Court stops sales of Peter Rabbit books Despite two separate appeals, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Press will not be allowed to continue publishing Peter Rabbit books. Officials from the publisher said the decision that it will keep its books of the famous character off the shelf was contradictory. Court ruling The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court ruled yesterday that the press did not violate nine of 11 trademarks owned by British Frederick Warne & Company Ltd, which owns Petter Rabitt. Still, the court did not rule on whether the Chinese press had violated the other two trademarks. Instead, it referred to a previous judgment last week which upheld the administrative decision to pull the books off the market. The case started last year when Warne & Company complained the Chinese press violated its trademarks. In April 2003, the Chinese press published 19 stories created by American writer Beatrix Potter. Books seized The local bureau of industry and commerce seized more than 20,000 Peter Rabbit books and fined the publisher 358,000 yuan (US$43,000) in August 2003. But the publisher hit back, suing both the bureau and Warne & Company. Last week, the court upheld the decision of the Xicheng Branch of the Beijing Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce. In effect, the court said the Chinese publisher violated copyright. Late American writer Beatrix Potter, who died in 1943, created Peter Rabbit. Between 1994 and 1997, the British company registered the 11 trademarks on Potter's creation, two of which are on Peter Rabbit and another nine on related characters. According to the Chinese law, copyright ends five decades after the death of the author. Source: China Daily

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!@!Re: [BP] Australian Copyright changes clear parliament
by Michael Hart 13 Dec '04

13 Dec '04

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004, Tony Kline wrote: > Steve Thomas <stephen.thomas(a)adelaide.edu.au> wrote: >> THE final element of the Australia-US free trade agreement (FTA) has >> passed through federal parliament. > > >> The term of protection for copyright material was extended by 20 years. > > > > > I like the way they call it a FREE Trade Agreement Steve, and then extend > the copyrights. Nice one, mate! FREE trade means THEY can trade, and WE can't. Just as when the Age of Exploration was for THEM, but not for US. Not to mention the Age of Reason. . . .

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Re: [BP] Australian Copyright changes clear parliament
by Michael Hart 13 Dec '04

13 Dec '04

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004, Tony Kline wrote: > Steve Thomas <stephen.thomas(a)adelaide.edu.au> wrote: >> THE final element of the Australia-US free trade agreement (FTA) has >> passed through federal parliament. > > >> The term of protection for copyright material was extended by 20 years. > > > > > I like the way they call it a FREE Trade Agreement Steve, and then extend > the copyrights. Nice one, mate! Freedom Is Slavery! Ignorance Is Strength! Economic War Is Peace! Copyright = National Security

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