[PGCanada] Introductions, and FAQ on term of copyright...

[Russell McOrmond]

On Tue, 9 Nov 2004, Darryl Moore wrote:

> Great, and here is a test of the list. Let's clear some of the cobwebs 
> and see if we can get others involved!

  Great that you have moved this.


  Quick introductions.  I'm the host for the Digital Copyright Canada
forum http://www.digital-copyright.ca/ .  I'm also co-coordinator of
http://www.goslingcommunity.org , and am helping to form The Forum on
Privatisation and the Public Domain http://www.ramshorn.ca/PPD/

  Darryl Moore got excited about the Project Gutenberg concept as a reply
to an article "One Internet, Many Copyright Laws" and the problems with
"Gone With the Wind" http://www.digital-copyright.ca/discuss/3986

  This lead Darryl, Wallace and myself to eventually find this forum.  
Looking at the archives it seems that Wallace already know..


  A number of topics have come up in our 3-way Cc: list.

  One thing I would like to see is a FAQ page that details authorship 
issues (who has first copyright used for life+ calculations) and term for 
each type of work.

  I have been asking the question about copyright term in Canada for a 
while.  One message recently was:

Term of copyright for corporations (unnatural "persons")
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/discuss/3899

  Taking the Index of "The 2001 Annotated Copyright Act", by Normand
Tamaro, and adding the links to the sections of the act I find.

anonymous and pseudonymous works
  general 6.1
    http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-6.1
    lesser of publication+50 , making+75
       - reverts to section 6 if author becomes known...

  joint ownership 6.1
    http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-6.2  
    Same as the general case...

cinematographic works 11.1
  http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-11.1
  fixed 50

Crown ownership 12
  http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-12
  fixed 50

foreign authors 9(2)
  http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-9
  May allow term to be decided by foreign country?

general 6
  http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-6
  life+50

joint authorship 9(1)
  http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-9
  life of last author+50

photographs 10
  http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-10
  fixed 50 for corporations, refer to section 6 for natural persons.

posthumous works 7
  http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/C-42/38965.html#section-7
  before death is publish+50?  This is not clear to read..


  Other than for photographs I still don't know the term for corporations.  
Are they considered joint authorship of the directors of the corporation?  
If so, how to we determine this to appropriately return these works to the 
public domain?


Note: I am an opponent of life+ terms.  Not only does it make determining
the term of copyright considerably harder as you need to follow the
ownership trail back to the first holder of copyright, but it also
suggests a morbid concept of society receiving benefit from the death of a
creator.

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Code is Law: how software code regulates the activities of citizens,
 and acts similar to law.  How do we ensure transparency/accountability?  
 http://www.flora.ca/russell/drafts/life-of-hacker.html#code=law