I think files expire only after they have not been
downloaded for 30 days, in the case of ge.tt that becomes even 90 days if one uses a registered account instead of an anonymous download. Reuploads are only necessary if no one downloaded the work for that time.
The problem is a different one. ge.tt is a freehoster that looks very nice today, but that's no base to build a project on. If tomorrow they drown the user in tons of ads; if they go out of business because they don't; if they decide to move from Amazon's Irish servers to Amazon's US servers; we're screwed. We have then to quickly pay money to rent a server from an Irish hoster... I might as well start immediately renting one in France! At least that's where I live.
Of course I understand Carl's point. But I seriously doubt that "a single legislation" will put us out of legal danger when that legislation happens to concern all downloads but only a fraction of our readers and listeners.
I also read loads of assumptions that I've neither said nor meant, but I'm too tired and it's generally not my style to take things on the Internet personally.
Obviously we will neither be against the law nor random. The problem with lawyers is that obeying the laws is necessary, but not
sufficient to avoid them. We're in Europe - actually even in more than just Europe, hello Brazil, hello India - and we're on the Internet. We won't be able to avoid crossing borders.
What I called "reasonable" is not anything else than what the law says, it's actually
less then that. Recording German authors in German language on LV that aren't PD in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, that's something I wouldn't do nor endorse. I think it sets the wrong tone. In an analogue example (hosting Dutch works in Canada that are PD in Canada only) this has been called "stretching the law". Actually, I dare to say that my approach - as I have it in my head, maybe I have communicated it wrongly - is
more cautious than sticking "only" to the law of a small country (as compared to the world, even the US are small) and thus ignore the fact that a large share of my listenership might disobey
their laws, and hope that each lawyer who smells an easy buck will accept the situation.
Now, how to get something productive out of this discussion...
No problem with centralising the file hoster in one country. But we should have something safer than a freehoster who looks good
today.
We definitely have to collect exceptions. Wikisource has already
something. Just because I call it "reasonable" and "subjective" does not mean it cannot be formalised a bit. What about this... should be a fairly standard scenario...
There is a work by author A in language L that we want to record. We have the possibility of putting them on a freehoster in country C1 or on a freehoster in country C2. The Legamus catalogue and uploader are located and DNS-housed in C2. Interested readers come from countries C2, C3 and C4.
Then we have to check whether the work is indeed PD in all the countries C1, C2, C3 and C4.
If it's not in C1, that's easy: just let's not use that freehoster.
If it's not in C2, that's kind of a dealbreaker.
If it's not in C3 or C4, we wouldn't want our readers to get into trouble and recommend them to read works that are in their PD (am I getting too paranoid here?)
and
if it's not PD in at least one country where there is a substantial number of speakers of language L, that would be a dealbreaker as well (case of "stretching the law").
How to determine this? We must maintain our list of exceptions (there shouldn't be
that many - most of the discussion about posthumous authors seems to come from some liberal UK laws that are not relevant to the "life+70" principle). And we should rely more on the reliable text archives - if it's PD in Gallica, then it should be OK for France.
Obviously this is just the beginning of the discussion of our procedures. Do you think we're heading into the right direction?