[pd-discuss] Canada PD calculation code

Wed Jun 3 18:42:38 UTC 2009

Hi,

David Read wrote:
> We want to cover all copyrightable
> material, not just books, but recordings too, for example.
>
> Andy, can you tell me if your diagram goes beyond books/photographs
> and covers music recordings too?

That flowchart was written with only books and photographs in mind, 
but as far as I know it should also cover audio recordings, films and 
neighbouring rights. They don't have special terms of copyright in 
Canada the way photographs and Crown Copyright do.

> Another thing that comes up in practice is the issue of imperfect
> data, such as missing author records, ambiguous authorship for records
> missing birth/death date information or finding the original
> publication date when the item in question is just a reissue.

We faced that problem with our project as well, which is why I 
included the general fall-back rule that's written at the top of the 
flowchart (although looking at it now, we could have been more clear 
about what it was for): The oldest person on record in Canada lived to 
117 years old, so we decided we would be safe to use that as the 
required length of time for the calculation: If death date is missing, 
assume the person lived to 117; If birth and death dates are missing, 
assume the person lived for 117 years after publication/creation. This 
errs on the side of caution of course, but we decided this was the 
best solution.

Cheers,
Andy

-- 
Andy Kaplan-Myrth, M.A., LL.B.
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email: andy at kaplan-myrth.ca
web: http://kaplan-myrth.ca
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