[sword-devel] Hosting non-US public domain modules

[jhphx]

What you say is in line with what I remember to be the case. But I 
haven't checked in a long time. There is also DMCA which  criminalizes 
the act of circumventing an access control even for PD texts. This only 
means one has to be careful about how one obtains the PD texts. One  of 
the treaties, we should be aware of is the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (
URAA), which allows for the restoration of copyright to some foreign 
texts from PD in the US to copyright protected.

http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
http://copyright.gov/circs/circ38b.pdf

Jerry

On 1/22/2016 11:15 AM, Kahunapule Michael Johnson wrote:
> I can confirm that Jonathan's claim is false. See
> http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm
> http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ15a.pdf
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries%27_copyright_lengths
> etc.
>
> We err on the side of caution, but don't need to react to assertions 
> made by those without authority who cite incomplete or false 
> information. The Malayalam Bible is clearly in the Public Domain, as 
> is EVERYTHING first published before *1923*. (OK, almost everything: 
> the Crown Letters Patent pertaining to the King James Version of the 
> Holy Bible and the Book of Common Prayer in the UK don't expire, but 
> that isn't a real copyright, and has no effect in the USA, unless you 
> are trying to export printed books to the UK.) In the USA, some works 
> published as late as 1 March *1989* can be in the Public Domain if 
> they were not properly marked with a copyright notice and not registered.
>
> Copyright expiration is very complicated due to changes in law over 
> time, the conditions of each of the laws, the variation in copyright 
> law between countries, and the international treaties that exist in 
> most, but not all, countries. One of the more difficult items in 
> copyright law is the way that it often ties copyright term to the 
> lifetime of the (last surviving) author(s), unless the copyright owner 
> is a corporation. That means that sometimes it is necessary to 
> research when the author(s) died to determine the copyright expiration 
> date.
>
> Changes in copyright law in the USA and through treaties also many 
> other nations have effectively paused the steady march of copyrighted 
> works into the Public Domain until the end of 2018. At that time, all 
> copyrights that have not already expired for copyrighted works first 
> published in 1924 will expire. At the end of 2019, all remaining 
> copyrights for works first published in 1925 will expire. That is, 
> unless congress annoys us by changing the law again.
>
> If you want competent legal advice, you can hire a lawyer who is an 
> expert in intellectual property law. If you don't want to pay for 
> that, at least read what is available from reputable and authoritative 
> sources online, such as http://www.copyright.gov.
>

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