Hello Vasa, welcome. I'm a newcomer as well. I see PG Canada both as a useful tool for fighting wrong headed copyright reforms and as an extremely valuable social institution in it's own right. In fact the former is true only because the latter is! I believe PG Canada becoming a registered charity will improve both its ability to deliver its core service and its respectability when commenting on pending legislation. Your strategy of using a for profit corporation is interesting, however unless you can show significant lost income you will have a difficult uphill battle. Additionally there is no Charter right to a profit. There is however a NAFTA one. You might consider making your company an American entity. Then you would be able to sue for expropriation under the terms of NAFTA in a way that you could not as a Canadian company. But again, you'd have to show some significant lost profits. Best of luck to you. cheers, darryl Michael Lockey wrote:
Hi:
Unaware of this list, I've been doing my own private plotting, and would like to run my thoughts past you. (This comes with the standard Canadian Disclaimer about not stepping on feet, embarrassment at being egotistical enough to make suggestions, etc., etc., etc)
I've been proofreading and mentoring at DP-INT and -EU for 16 months or so, and have shared many of the fears and uncertainties about the future of Public Domain.
It is interesting and frightening to see how one (relatively) small country can unilaterally change Copyright, then cajole their 'friends' until a global result is achieved, despite the opposition of most. (I note parentherically that most of the world is Life+50.)
I have, consequently, incorporated Distributed Proofreaders of Canada as a for profit concern; I also own dp50.net. (Quite frankly, I don't think we should be jingoistic in any of our endeavours.)
I don't think that Disney Corporation- or even Margaret Atwood, God help us!- are ameniable to the rights of humanity, or such: I think we must fight them on their grounds: money, control, and power.
Which is why DP-CAN is a for-profit operation. (Remember that a corporation may give away any amount of its profit.) To download a work from DP-CAN (www.dp50.net) will cost $1/download, payable, by the downloader, to any registered or non-registered operation or individual, as a charitable donation. In this way, DP-CAN will never directly receive any money, though both a gross and net income may be established. If, then, the government tries to reprivatize materials currently in PD, we will suffer a loss and be able to sue for damages. My lawyer and I are prepared to go to the Supreme Court, if necessary.
Where I, personally, want to be challenging is by claiming, (as our charter does), rights of use for any material- globally- that is currently in the Public Domain in Canada. (As, for example, an individual or corporation may claim mineral rights without doing any work on them for up to 15 years.)
Anyway- that's what I've been working on. My sites are not yet viable: I'm working alone, so far. Given the activities going on here, maybe I'll need to change some directions. But I've structured this to FIGHT: and fight I will. Hence the Company's Motto:
THE BOOK STOPS HERE
Cheers, Vasa (Michael Lockey) _______________________________________________ Project Gutenberg of Canada Website: http://www.projectgutenberg.ca/ List: pgcanada@lists.pglaf.org Archives: http://lists.pglaf.org/private.cgi/pgcanada/