Templates, tech specs and so on

[Leni]

Hmm. The "This LV recording is in the PD" meant, for me, that *I* was releasing it in the PD. I mean, it just means I can't claim any rights over it, I am releasing this recording - but if the text is PD in your country or not, that's for you to research.

Anyway, for the sake of concision, I'd rather not have anything more specific. =/

Suggestion of disclaimer:

First section:
Book Title by Author. Translated by Translator.
This Public Domain recording was produced at legamus dot eu.
Chapter/section 1 (Chaptertitle)

For all other sections:
Section # of Book Title. This Legamus recording is in the Public Domain.
Chapter/section # (Chaptertitle only when a new chapter starts with this section)

End of sections
End of section #
If you wish: Read by xyz

End of book
End of Book Title by Author, translated by translator. Help us produce free audiobooks: join us at legamus dot eu.

What do y'all think?

[Viktor]

Hmm. The "This LV recording is in the PD" meant, for me, that *I* was releasing it in the PD. I mean, it just means I can't claim any rights over it, I am releasing this recording - but if the text is PD in your country or not, that's for you to research.

I second Ruth, and there is no contradiction to what you say: Even if it's the reader who releases his LV recording in the PD, he can only do that for the US and "compatible" legislations. I think the underlying problem here is the use of the definite article in "the PD". Globally, there are as many PDs as legislations... It would be correct but awkward to say "This recording is in my PD"

Anyway, for the sake of concision, I'd rather not have anything more specific. =/

A valid concern. What about saying Ruth's suggestion only for the beginning of the book? I do like the idea of giving the reason "+70" somewhere, but maybe it is not needed in every section.

[Hokuspokus]

I don't think that we need to give the reason for the recording being in the pd in the recording. We must write it on the catalog page, of course.

As for German law, I can't put my recording into the public domain; for two reasons:
1. There is no public domain in Germany. Something can be "gemeinfrei" (this is not the same, though in everyday usage it has the same effect), but only when the author (me, in this case) is dead for more than 70 years.
2. Under German (and Austrian) law, I can't give away my Urheberrecht, I only can allow all use.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinfreiheit

[RuthieG]

Does it have to be the same for all recordings? I have to admit that I am particularly bothered about The Prophet, because it is immensely popular in the US.

The Prophet is in its 163rd printing and has sold over 100 million copies[4] since its original publication in 1923.[5] The Prophet is consistently in the best selling category (overall) at Amazon.[6] The Prophet is one of the best-selling books of all time.

Founded in 1935, the GNC is a non-profit corporation holding the exclusive rights to manage the Lebanese author Khalil Gibran's copyright in and to his literary and artistic works.[9] In 2009, the GNC granted exclusive rights to create a film based on The Prophet to Gibran: The Prophet, LLC, a group located in the United States.

The last thing we need is any difficulties before we have got properly going.

EDIT: In fact, I would be even happier if I could actually state "The Prophet is still under copyright in the United States."

Ruth

[kattekliek]

EDIT: In fact, I would be even happier if I could actually state "The Prophet is still under copyright in the United States."

I think this is a wise thing to do; in fact for all books that we know are popular, still under copyright in the US and still a 'milking cow' for companies over there.

[kattekliek]

As for German law, I can't put my recording into the public domain; for two reasons:
1. There is no public domain in Germany. Something can be "gemeinfrei" (this is not the same, though in everyday usage it has the same effect), but only when the author (me, in this case) is dead for more than 70 years.
2. Under German (and Austrian) law, I can't give away my Urheberrecht, I only can allow all use.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemeinfreiheit

I think we should be consistent at legamus.eu; if not all EU-citizens can put their work into the PD, we should use a different approach. Somewhere at the forum I saw mentioning of Creative Commons. Then the question is: which license? Closest to PD would be: also commercial use allowed, modifications allowed, no name needed to be mentioned. But we do not necessarily need to choose that option. I for one would be more in favour to rule out commercial use. What do you think?

[Leni]

Regarding the disclaimer, I think we should be consistent. In Librivox, we have some very popular books, still copyrighted in the EU, and we don't have it stated on the audio, only on the catalog page. I forgot which one it is now that has this very big warning on the top of the page. So, I think we should have one model of disclaimer, with very few variations (poetry, drama etc).

As to the license: I think that putting any kind of restriction defeats the purpose of the whole effort, which is, like LV (I think), the free uninterested spreading of culture. It would be hard (and a waste of energy, IMO) to keep track of who is using it and where, and if they're making money out of it. The Public Domain is there even for people to make money out of it, if they wish to, and that's ok.

[Viktor]

Somewhere at the forum I saw mentioning of Creative Commons. Then the question is: which license? Closest to PD would be: also commercial use allowed, modifications allowed, no name needed to be mentioned. But we do not necessarily need to choose that option. I for one would be more in favour to rule out commercial use. What do you think?

Ha, that's a big discussion you open there!

I'm fully with you; I did some solos of material that could have been on LV but I chose the noncommercial BY-NC-SA license. I wanted people to contact me before doing anything commercially (and yes, that includes advertised sites - why not, after all, as I'm doing it all without ads). I don't need to ask for money, I could allow a usage just for free when they contact me. No one ever contacted me.

I think this (a) works fine for solos and (b) is quite a different spirit than LV, so it'll be controversial. For projects with several readers, CC-0 might be the best choice, even if it's just for purely practical reasons: Who would be the contact for requests? As soon as money flows, who gets it? All the readers, some readers, a non-profit like the Electronic Frontier Foundation? Tricky questions that, to me, it seems impossible to answer sufficiently "in general".

It would already be "revolutionary" if we'd slacken the rules for solo projects by letting the soloist choose the license (s)he wants, be it CC-0 or BY-NC-SA. Not sure about the most restrictive -ND though, maybe that'll better be avoided.

What do you think?

[RuthieG]

Well, personally, I should prefer a CC license. I have already seen people do lots of things with my recordings and it hasn't bothered me. But as my quality has improved (and is now regarded as more or less professional), there is a serious danger that some corporation may pick them up and sell them "properly" and make considerable beans from them and I would have no control over what they do. I am really scared about The Prophet as it is such a popular book in the States (and, though I say it myself, it is sounding pretty good).

Ruth

[kattekliek]

It would already be "revolutionary" if we'd slacken the rules for solo projects by letting the soloist choose the license (s)he wants, be it CC-0 or BY-NC-SA. Not sure about the most restrictive -ND though, maybe that'll better be avoided.

What do you think?

* CC (regardless of which restrictions we'ld put on it) would be a solution for those countries/users (like e.g. HP) where it is impossible to issue anything into the PD. Germany, Austria ... are there any more?
* As Leni says, it's quite out of sync with issuing works into the PD, if we would put any restriction on commercial use on it. The other side of the coin is that, if we use this restriction for very popular books that are not PD in the US, we might not get the same hassle with those as when some non-US commercial party would make big money on it and thus catch the attention of some US commercial party who does not like that and will send a lawyer to us to try & stop this. It's not so much about raising money ourselves; more as a shield to commercial use that could be detrimental to our project. If we are contacted, we can say 'no', in stead of saying 'yes' and wondering whose bankaccount the payment should go to

[RuthieG]

The other side of the coin is that, if we use this restriction for very popular books that are not PD in the US, we might not get the same hassle with those as when some non-US commercial party would make big money on it and thus catch the attention of some US commercial party who does not like that and will send a lawyer to us to try & stop this.

Put much better than I did - this is precisely my concern.

[kattekliek]

The other side of the coin is that, if we use this restriction for very popular books that are not PD in the US, we might not get the same hassle with those as when some non-US commercial party would make big money on it and thus catch the attention of some US commercial party who does not like that and will send a lawyer to us to try & stop this.

Put much better than I did - this is precisely my concern.

It would be interesting to know the background of a case that happened at LV and that is basically the same (although when looking at legislation details, it was 'the other way around'): some pre-1922 book of Agatha Christie (who died only 35 years ago) was removed from the LV-catalogue, because a lawyer contacted Hugh and made a problem of it. Why did that happen; was it just because it was free to download (although not allowed outside of the US), or did someone pick it up and sell it and did this draw the attention of the copyright holder of this material outside the US? Who knows the history of this case? It could help us now to decide about the best thing to do with regard to 'The prophet' and alikes.

[Viktor]

Is anyone here in contact with or a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation? Sounds like a good subject to discuss with them, preemptively.

[neckertb]

It would be interesting to know the background of a case that happened at LV and that is basically the same (although when looking at legislation details, it was 'the other way around'): some pre-1922 book of Agatha Christie (who died only 35 years ago) was removed from the LV-catalogue, because a lawyer contacted Hugh and made a problem of it. Why did that happen; was it just because it was free to download (although not allowed outside of the US), or did someone pick it up and sell it and did this draw the attention of the copyright holder of this material outside the US? Who knows the history of this case? It could help us now to decide about the best thing to do with regard to 'The prophet' and alikes.

I think most of the trouble came from Hugh being Canadian in Canada, where Christie is not PD. They would not accept that US law should apply when the files were stored there.

As for CC or PD, I'm afraid to say I don't really have any strong opinion on this. I like the idea of being an extension of LV, but on the other hand, we are starting something new, so we can change some things.

I have yet to find one of my recordings being used commercially, so I guess it is a lesser concern for me than for Ruth, for instance. But I can't really make up my mind.

as for the disclaimer: I agree with whoever said that there is no need to mention that this is not PD in the US (in the recording, but I'll put it in big fat red somewhere when it's done). I like Ruth's suggestion (which I cannot seem to find anymore): "this recording is in the public domain (or CC) in death + 70 countries".

i would also be fine with soloists choosing for themselves, as Vitkor suggests.

Sorry, no clear line from me today (I'm hopeless).

[RuthieG]

The problem with the AC estate was that the domain was first registered in Canada, where AC was and still is under copyright, and at that point the domain was still owned personally by a Canadian. The files themselves were by that time hosted in the US and US PD status was conceded by the complainant.

In one case he found, a judge ruled that because the server was hosted in the U.S., U.S. copyright laws applied. In another case, a judge ruled that the copyright laws which apply wherever the person responsible for providing the content is located are the ones that matter.

From that point of view, we are fine, as the host servers AND the content providers will be located in Death+70 countries.

What seems to have worked pretty well for LV since that time is the disclaimer on every catalogue page:

LibriVox recordings are Public Domain in the USA. If you are not in the USA, please verify the copyright status of this work in your own country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright laws.

However, it is the USA that is the huge audiobook market, and the USA that is HUGE in litigation, and the more I think about it, the more I think we should take more precautions than just having the disclaimer on the catalogue page.

Ruth

[kattekliek]

I agree, Ruthie, we should not step over this all too easily. Even if the law would be at our side, we could still be drawn into court and proving that we are not doing anything illegal, does cost money ...

Why did that happen; was it just because it was free to download (although not allowed outside of the US), or did someone pick it up and sell it and did this draw the attention of the copyright holder of this material outside the US?

Anyone who knows the answer to that question re. the Agatha Christie-case?

[RuthieG]

It was on eBay, I believe, but I don't know whether they picked it up from that or direct from the site. It was before my time. These copyright enforcement people do web searches as a matter of course, and send out cease and desist letters all over the place.

[kattekliek]

It was on eBay, I believe, but I don't know whether they picked it up from that or direct from the site. It was before my time. These copyright enforcement people do web searches as a matter of course, and send out cease and desist letters all over the place.

OK, so it would not really help us so much to put a CC-no commercial use on these kind of books. It would prevent the books from popping up at Ebay or Audible, but they would find them anyway.

The only way to be safe, would be to make sure that we are completely outside the US domain (even with cloud based hosting etc.). Viktor, can we be absolutely sure we are? And re. the domain name: the main reason librivox.eu somewhat scares me, is the argumentation US-lawyers could use as to our connections to librivox.org and (thus) a US-based organisation.

Does anyone know what experiences the several Gutenberg sites have with this? They must also feel the tension between the copyright regulations in their own country and the US. We could learn a lot from their experience.

[RuthieG]

I don't know, but I would feel more comfortable separating the two, as I record for both. And I like Legamus. (We will soon become well-known, you know!)

Ruth

[Viktor]

The only way to be safe, would be to make sure that we are completely outside the US domain (even with cloud based hosting etc.). Viktor, can we be absolutely sure we are?

At the moment, a clear YES !

Domain registered at OVH (French registrar and provider) by me (German citizen living in France).
Webspace kindly provided by French non-profit Tuxfamily.
The download hoster free.fr is a big French provider with its own infrastructure, I very much doubt that they use foreign server resources.

You're very right, though, that we must pay much attention to this. Let's insist to ask detailed questions and avoid anything that does not give a clear response. For example, I wrote to the ge.tt folks, as they seem to use Amazon's cloud storage. Without a clear response, we should not use their service.

When dealing with Internet and lawyers, I don't see any way to be "100% safe". I'll ask my contacts at the Free Software Foundation Europe for advice, and we should ask the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well.