[pd-discuss] The Public Domain Review's Class of 2014

Tue Dec 10 21:27:06 UTC 2013

On 12/10/13 3:56 PM, Peter B. Hirtle wrote:
> I know that you are careful to restrict the Public Domain Review to
> works that are in the public domain in life+70 countries, but wouldn’t
> it be better if your graduating class were works that have entered the
> public domain everywhere in the world, and hence are eligible to receive
> a CC PD mark?

And here I'd been thinking that it was a shame that the class didn't
include the life+50 classes (including CS Lewis, Aldous Huxley, Robert
Frost, Francis Poulenc, Sylvia Plath, AJ Liebling, etc.)

This is more relevant than usual, because a number of the prominent
countries that still use the Berne convention standard (like Canada,
Japan, and New Zealand) are involved in the Trans-Pacific Partnership
negotiations, where they could lose all of these people, and many more,
from their public domain, for an additional 20 years.  (Or, if Mexico's
"life+100" proposal gets traction, another 50!)

Much of the relentless push to extend copyright further and further
has involved taking the outliers in copyright terms and making them
the norm for discussions of the public domain.  It's my opinion that
repeating that pattern for the Public Domain Review will promote that
damaging way of thinking.

As a project of the OKFN (which while global is primarily based in
Europe), I'm find with the PDR going with the European term benchmark
of life+70, as long as they make it clear that that's what they're
using, and that the lengths of copyrights vary around the world.
(Where I am in the US, for example, early works of many of the PDR
"class of 2014" are already in the public domain now, while later works
won't be for some time to come.)

And I encourage folks in other countries with different terms to also
discuss works and authors who are entering the public domain where
they are (or, in the case of some countries, discussing why stuff
*isn't* entering the public domain where they are).  And perhaps the PDR
and the OKFN can publicize links to these various discussions, to show
how the public domain works in many different places, and encourage
more sensible public domain policies globally.

John

>
> My worry is that a non-specialist may not realize that the works that
> you list are not in the public domain everywhere.
>
> Peter Hirtle
>
> *Peter B. Hirtle*, FSAA
>
> Senior Policy Advisor, Cornell University Library &
>
> Research Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University
>
> peter.hirtle at cornell.edu <mailto:peter.hirtle at cornell.edu>
>
> phirtle at cyber.law.harvard.edu <mailto:phirtle at cyber.law.harvard.edu>
> t.  607.592.0684
>
> http://vivo.cornell.edu/individual/individual23436
>
> /Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for Digitization for
> U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums:/
>
> _http://hdl.handle.net/1813/14142_
>
> *From:*pd-discuss [mailto:pd-discuss-bounces at lists.okfn.org] *On Behalf
> Of *Adam Green
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 10, 2013 10:15 AM
> *To:* Public Domain discuss list
> *Subject:* [pd-discuss] The Public Domain Review's Class of 2014
>
> Hi all,
>
> Just to let you know that The Public Domain Review has just published
> it's yearly instalment of the "Class of..." series, Class of 2014: our
> top pick of those entering the public domain next year in those
> countries with a ‘life plus 70 years’ copyright term.
>
> See the post here: http://publicdomainreview.org/2013/12/10/class-of-2014/
>
> Would be great if you could spread word of the post as much as possible
> through email lists, social media, etc, and I'd also love to hear your
> comments: who we might be missing, some useful links to include, etc.
>
> Also any ideas about how we might follow up on this, ideas for projects,
> collaborations relating to some of the "graduation class", would be very
> welcome.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Adam.
>
> --
>
>
> Adam Green
>
> Editor, The Public Domain Review <http://publicdomainreview.org/> |
> _ at PublicDomainRev <https://twitter.com/PublicDomainRev>_
>
> TheOpen Knowledge Foundation <http://okfn.org/>
>
> /Empowering through Open Knowledge/
>
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>
>
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