Aussie readers

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algy pug
Posts: 95
Joined: Thu 9. Jun 2011, 05:19

Aussie readers

Post by algy pug »

I know that the contingent of possible Australian readers is very small but we do have an unusal advantage as far as Public Domain is concerned: in this country the works of any author and/or translator who died before 1955 are in the Public Domain. This means that the entire works of George Orwell and George Bernard Shaw, not to mention Margaret Mitchell's "Gone with the Wind," are PD in this country. I am sure many readers would be interested in tackling these classics.

However, I assume that such books could only be hosted on a site located in Australia. With regard to web hosting I also assume that the copyright laws for any material on a website would would depend on the location of the host server, rather than the country where the site was created. This could make things difficult over here as there are few locally based quality web hosting services.

Regards

Algy Pug
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Viktor
Posts: 602
Joined: Mon 4. Jul 2005, 01:24
Location: France

Re: Aussie readers

Post by Viktor »

Hi Algy!

If I understand this correctly, the Canadians are in a very similar situation to you Australians (maybe even "better", as they didn't yet give up life+50 for the future?)

Maybe you can team up?

I think you're right: again, this would need a separate community of Canadian/Australian readers, Canadian/Australian listeners and Canadian/Australian servers. At least for such books that are PD in CA/AUS. For those which are PD in life+70 countries, you're most welcome here ;)

In Canada there should be quality web hosts, no? When Legamus gets rolling, we'll see how many resources are needed - for forum, catalogue and database tools, not much, I think. For the uploader, one needs much traffic and storage space, but not much CPU. Everything I do for Legamus will be free software hosted on Bitbucket or similar, I hope this would help another project get going quickly!
algy pug
Posts: 95
Joined: Thu 9. Jun 2011, 05:19

Re: Aussie readers

Post by algy pug »

Hi Viktor

I was probably a little unkind to the Australian web hosting industry - I am sure there are companies which do provide an excellent service in this country. Of course, the real issue is not the website hosting but rather the media storage. I would be interested to find out where Project Gutenberg Australia stores its EBook files. Unlike Project Gutenberg in the USA PGA does carry online advertisements, which, fortunately, are not too intrusive. However I don't know how other members woud feel about legamus using media hosting which does this. Another option would be to find some rich dude who just loves audio books and wants to spread the joy, but unfortunately, in this country, the extravagantly rich prefer to squander their wealth subsidizing sport rather than literature. Perhaps someone needs to set up www.archive.org.au........

Cheers

Algy
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Viktor
Posts: 602
Joined: Mon 4. Jul 2005, 01:24
Location: France

Re: Aussie readers

Post by Viktor »

Have a look into this thread, there we are discussing precisely such issues. A few ads don't bother us, reliability of downloads are more important. But in particular, we're debating how to assure that we are 100% safe on the legal side.

Legamus is a project for PD in life+70 countries that is not PD in the US and can therefore not be on LibriVox. I'm afraid we can't do anything about books that are PD only in life+50 countries. For that, you'd have to set up a dedicated CA/AUS community.
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