Copyright Information Project

[NLewis]

Hi everyone. I don't think a lot of you know me, but my name is Emery. Carolus and I have been working on the "copyright information project" for quite some time, and we created a detailed page for US copyright law and Canadian copyright law. I'm creating this topic in the forums so that there is a convenient place to discuss certain issues that I'm sure will arise. For example, we are working on a sortable list, which I think will be a good resource for the following reasons: it will be able to group countries by continent, length of copyright (death of author and publication), and also which treaties the country follows. Another reason for the sortable list is that it will help us figure out how to group some countries together when we write their pages. The following link is to the draft page:

http://imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:Copyright_I ... /MainDraft

We will be beginning the page on the EU soon, and everyone is welcome to share ideas on how to best approach this. It will not be easy, and I don't think I really know too much about the subject; hopefully we can finish this by the end of January.

Anybody who would like to join and lend a hand is welcome. Even if you are not a copyright reviewer, you are welcome to proofread. My conventions aren't always the best, as the helpful copy-editors can testify.


Respectfully yours,
Emery

[pjones235]

I wouldn't mind helping.

[steltz]

Can we add other countries, e.g. South Africa, yet?

[NLewis]

Hi Steltz. I don't see why not, South Africa is a great country to add. If you would like to write it, please feel free to go ahead. South Africa's copyright laws are based on a lot of court decisions, so make sure you reserarch some of the decisions, I think they're important. Thanks so much for the help!

[steltz]

South Africa's copyright laws are based on a lot of court decisions, so make sure you reserarch some of the decisions

I'm not sure I know what you mean. The court decisions deal mostly with fine detail which I don't see on your chart, like threshold of originality. The basic information is just life + 50, and the treaties, which are all fairly straightforward. Is there something I'm missing?

[smartuser20]

Hi. I have a blog about copyright and how Canadian and US copyright laws interact with each other. Can I quote a few things from here, as long as I give proper credit? I can tell you my site address if you would like.

[Carolus]

I see no problem as everything on the wiki pages is covered by a free-distribution license.

[NLewis]

Feel free to quote any of it. By law, it is free. However, I would like to have the link to your blog where you will be quoting the material. Not for any legal reason, but I'm honored that our copyright writing is finding use somewhere other than IMSLP. One main idea behind the copyright information project was to make this information easily available to the public. Any use of our material (properly cited please) most certainly helps to accomplish this goal.