I swear I am not a wet blanket...

Jon Ingram · Post by **Jon Ingram** » January 4th, 2006, 8:58 am

Indeed. The Librivox admins shouldn't care about where the people are who send in the recordings. As long as the material is out of copyright where Librivox is based, then Librivox is sorted.

Copyright really hasn't adjusted to the internet yet... and will take quite a while to do so. At the moment things are in the US's favour -- there are a *lot* of works that are out of copyright in the US, but still have copy restrictions in other countries. This will change over time, though, because every year another year's worth of material becomes public domain in life+X countries, but in the US the public domain is frozen, potentially forever.

raynr · Post by **raynr** » January 4th, 2006, 9:35 am

You are not allowed to alter the content in any way. Copyright maintains that the content must remain in its original form. You have a right to read the material in the format it was sold to you, but you must not alter it (even for your own use).

If a publisher needs money he will send lawyers to private readers and look if they made notices in the book and therefore altered the content

To be serious, I think all legal questions are important. Companies increasingly like to sue because of copyright. A person in Germany had to pay 1200 Euro just because he sold a braclet on ebay and wrote that it was "in design of cartier"
http://www.stern.de/computer-technik/internet/?id=513174

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » January 4th, 2006, 9:35 am

more realistically, we would receive a cease and desist notice... we would then decide whether or not to continue providing the content in question.

If we do our very best to follow the laws, and document our procedures and policies, at some point we decide on how much acceptable risk we are willing to take... nothing we do can prevent a law suit, however, the difference is how well we can defend ourselves and our decisions.

If effort on our part is made to determine copyright status as public domain and someone later surfaces with a claim to the copyright of work we produce, our decision will simply be whether to continue making the item available and face further legal action, or removing the item from our servers.

I vote that we do our homework, document our process, and take our chances from there.

Rev. Steve · Post by **Rev. Steve** » January 4th, 2006, 1:58 pm

It is great that we are having this discussion ? and I encourage continued discussion, but none of us (as far as I know) are qualified to make any kind of authoritative statement. Considering what is at stake I tend to think that the final decision should be made with input from informed and qualified sources.

Is there anyone here who is a member of the bar, and can provide some informed guidance?

Jon Ingram · Post by **Jon Ingram** » January 4th, 2006, 2:18 pm

A simple lawyer wouldn't do -- you'd need one specialising in copyright law, and these are generally far too busy and earning far too much money to be on a forum like this!

I've been submitting books for copyright clearance by Project Gutenberg for years, and you can be quite confident that any book marked public domain by PG *is* public domain in the US, and that's all Librivox needs to care about.

PG has already done the copyright research for you.

Rev. Steve · Post by **Rev. Steve** » January 4th, 2006, 9:05 pm

I do not understand your resistance to exploring the legal liability LibriVox is open to, and exploring ways to limit that liability ? just as PG wisely did at some point. In truth, this has little or nothing to do with PG, (other than using their disclaimer as an example) and not that much to do with copyright. It has NOTHING to do with invalidating or calling into question your work with PG, and it has nothing to do with you personally.

Suggesting that a competent lawyer is too important to be involved with LibriVox is just, insulting to everyone here.

Jon Ingram · Post by **Jon Ingram** » January 5th, 2006, 1:00 am

PG is very useful for Librivox for several reasons. If we need to justify why we include a particular text, then 'it's in the PG collection' works very well, because PG research the copyright status of every single one of their texts. We can also use the experience of PG as a guide, because they have been and will be subject to all the same possible challenges as Librivox.

I agree that thinking about liability is a good idea, but there's no need to wait for a copyright lawyer to pass by. Input from one may be useful, but we can have a perfectly good discussion without such input.

Post by **hugh** » January 5th, 2006, 5:23 am

comment one:
every once in a while a thread start that seems to excite passion among our volunteers, and occasionally we passionate posters get a bit red in the ears - I urge everyone to play nice. If your ears are burning, wait wee a bit and post when your ears are no longer red.

comment two (split into several parts):

1. I am talking to Project Gutenberg today about various things, one will be advice about legal issues that gutenberg has faced, and suggestions to us. They have a long and successful experience, and that certainly will be of excellent value.

2. I will confirm that we can use the PG text-copyright clearance process - ie. we would put texts in question into the PG system, and get clearance from them. This has already been offered.

3. I am exploring possibilities for making LibriVox a registered, non-profit charity, and need to understand the pros&cons. Again, as *I* am probably LibriVox in eyes of law right now, it's in my interest to make sure liability issues are covered. They are certainly legitimate questions.

4. I will be seeking legal advice. Most big firms provide some pro bono service, for projects of interest. I'll see if I can twist arms of the lawyers I know to get some advice. this is a potentially huge project, and a copyright lawyer -- with a good heart cough cough -- will be interested in helping us out, I think.

5. Internet Archive is another well-funded organization that can help us out with advice - they have been very helpful to date.

Hugh.

Stephan · Post by **Stephan** » January 5th, 2006, 5:39 am

We ourselfs are a well funded organisation if need be!

Catch my drift?

Jon Ingram · Post by **Jon Ingram** » January 5th, 2006, 5:42 am

I look forward to any report you give on your talk with PG. I'll also be interested to know how you get on with your investigations into non-profit status -- I've heard that it involves a *lot* of messy adminstration!

Stephan · Post by **Stephan** » January 6th, 2006, 1:21 pm

In the meantime. Hilarious reads:
How PirateBay, a swedish torrent-Listing website, deals with correspondence send to them by Microsoft, EA, Sega, DreamWorks, Apple, Warner Bros......
http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php
You get a good glimpse at how corporate lawers handles stuff.

Cetz · Post by **Cetz** » June 4th, 2006, 2:07 pm

Stephan wrote:In the meantime. Hilarious reads:
How PirateBay, a swedish torrent-Listing website, deals with correspondence send to them by Microsoft, EA, Sega, DreamWorks, Apple, Warner Bros......
http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php
You get a good glimpse at how corporate lawers handles stuff.

Thank you for this ... *smile* ... Always interesting to find out how ather peopel (wrong spelled) think about my ... country ...

It was actually from the piratebay I found out of librivox ...

Stephan · Post by **Stephan** » June 4th, 2006, 2:30 pm

Are all Sweds so stubborn like the guys on PirateBay? Exellent!

Too bad, last week the industry got to them anyhow.
Police raided the provider of piratebay and forced them to handout the servers.

The effing industry is just too powerfull and somehow with all their money and lawyers found a way to exploit the law in their interest. Effing puppeteers.

Note that there is absolutely not a single file of pirated material on these servers. Nor is there any hint or trace of any transfers of pirated material to be found on these servers. Thats how BitTorrent Works. It's all just numbers. It's a legal grey area and swedish law will now have to decide whether PirateBay can be sued for aid in illegal activities despite of their servers and programs having no idea of what's transfered through them.

RobertG · Post by **RobertG** » June 5th, 2006, 5:25 pm

Stephan wrote:How PirateBay, a swedish torrent-Listing website, deals with correspondence......

Guess those corporate lawyers managed to get a blow in, though! The Swedish bittorrent site is now operating out of the Netherlands. :o

RobertG · Post by **RobertG** » June 5th, 2006, 5:27 pm

As for the remainder of this conversation, I am beginning to get a glimmer of why Richard Cory put a bullet through his head!

http://librivox.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2516

To make the noise stop!