I was interested in doing some more freethought literature for Librivox, something not as long as Ingersoll (which Mask O' Glass is already doing a superb job on, by the way) and ran across Infidels.org's historical library. Seeing that some of the text were written well before 1923, I assumed that they would be in the public domain and available to record. Not wanting to overstep my bounds in case someone owned the rights to those writings, which cannot be found anywhere else but their library, I e-mailed them to find the copyright information. Here is the reply I got back:
Hi ****,
My apologies for the delay in my reply. I had to run your request by Emmett Fields, owner of the Bank of Wisdom, who supplied Internet Infidels with the text of the vast majority of the public domain material in our historical library. Neither Internet Infidels nor the Bank of Wisdom has any objection to Librivox.org volunteers reading historical library material outloud and recording them as free, public domain audio files available from your website. Emmett requests that Bank of Wisdom be given credit for the source of the files and that LibriVox.org link to bankofwisdom.com when pointing to any audio files produced from reading those files. Internet Infidels would also like such an acknowledgement, if possible, although if you must choose between us I'd give Bank of Wisdom priority since they were gracious enough to supply the vast majority of our historical library material back when we were just a fledging website run out of Texas A&M University.
I see from your front page that LibriVox only claims a Creative Commons license for all of your work. According to such a license, "the Work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, used, modified, built upon, or otherwise exploited by anyone for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and in any way, including by methods that have not yet been invented or conceived." Consequently, I imagine that this is legally permissible without asking, but Emmett would like to know if LibriVox would be amenable to Bank of Wisdom marketing DVD or audio tape copies of any of the audio files available on your website produced from reading from his Bank of Wisdom files. On behalf of Internet Infidels I'd also like to know if you would be comfortable with II hosting any of those files directly on infidels.org, though in practice we'll likely just link to LibriVox.org from our radio page. (I ask because in the event that LibriVox.org disappeared and we were still around, I'd like to know if we had the option of hosting those files.)
Keith Augustine, exec AT infidels.org
Executive Director and Scholarly Paper Editor
Internet Infidels www.infidels.org
The Secular Web is a website operated by the Internet Infidels,
a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to defending and
promoting a naturalistic worldview on the Internet.
Since I am nowhere near being a bigwig here on Librivox, I need to know what you guys think. I also have no information to reply to him for his request that he asks. Any information would be greatly appreciated here
Wow, thats a very thorough reply. While I am not a copyright guru, it seems ok to record these pieces. As to thier requests, the answer is a definate YES YES YES!
They may host, copy and distribute our recordings without any kind of permission from us. Out of courtesy, it would be nice to credit LV and link back to us. This would increase our visibility greatly as well.
Esther
"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable
people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress,
therefore, depends on unreasonable people." George Bernard Shaw
(I ask because in the event that LibriVox.org disappeared and we were still around, I'd like to know if we had the option of hosting those files.)
Seriously, now, why does it seem recently that outsiders are so pessimistically suggesting that LV may dissapear and subsequently our audio files?
(On a side note, if they got this idea from the other magazine article, that's not very free thinking on their part ^_- )
But, a response should probably include a reminder that our files are public domain (as opposed to creative commons), and would not require any permission, but we always enjoy hearing how people are using our files, and any links back are always good. ^_^
also note, our files are hosted on the internet archive, whose about page says:
Libraries exist to preserve society's cultural artifacts and to provide access to them. If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it's essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world.
Many early movies were recycled to recover the silver in the film. The Library of Alexandria - an ancient center of learning containing a copy of every book in the world - was eventually burned to the ground. Even now, at the turn of the 21st century, no comprehensive archives of television or radio programs exist.
But without cultural artifacts, civilization has no memory and no mechanism to learn from its successes and failures. And paradoxically, with the explosion of the Internet, we live in what Danny Hillis has referred to as our "digital dark age."
The Internet Archive is working to prevent the Internet - a new medium with major historical significance - and other "born-digital" materials from disappearing into the past. Collaborating with institutions including the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we are working to preserve a record for generations to come.
Hmm..I guess the question here is do we accept their validation that the works we'd be recording are indeed in the public domain, as we have with Gutenberg. If we're willing to trust their research, or perhaps find the details ourselves, then I don't see why it would be a problem recording such stuff.
We don't need their permission (nor cite them as a source, though that is our practice) to record the works off their site if the original work is in the public domain (which is determined in the same manner we determine it with all other works posted on the Internet). If there is any evidence that the work has been altered from the original (edited or annotated), it is considered a new work that carries its own copyright.
The policy regarding recording from an html version is posted on our Copyright and Public Domain wiki page =)
~ Betsie Multiple projects lead to multiple successes!
1. How can we tell if a text has been altered in any way if the only text available is the one on the website? Take this guy for instance. I've searched through the internet to see if I could find his works anywhere else outside the Historical Library with no luck. From the link, if we trust the dates, the works are clearly in the PD since he died long before 1923.
2. The Bank of Wisdom website doesn't have any of these texts on their website. What they have is CD's of the scanned pages of the texts for sale. Most usually Librivox links directly to the site of the text. If I recorded on of these texts, would two links be necessary; one to the Bank of Wisdom website as "donated by" and another to the Internet Infidels Historical Library where the text could be found?
When I wrote the e-mail, I had no idea it was going to be this complicated. Sorry for the trouble.
1. How can we tell if a text has been altered in any way if the only text available is the one on the website? Take this guy for instance. I've searched through the internet to see if I could find his works anywhere else outside the Historical Library with no luck. From the link, if we trust the dates, the works are clearly in the PD since he died long before 1923.
2. The Bank of Wisdom website doesn't have any of these texts on their website. What they have is CD's of the scanned pages of the texts for sale. Most usually Librivox links directly to the site of the text. If I recorded on of these texts, would two links be necessary; one to the Bank of Wisdom website as "donated by" and another to the Internet Infidels Historical Library where the text could be found?
When I wrote the e-mail, I had no idea it was going to be this complicated. Sorry for the trouble.
Nidhogg
If our only text version to read from online was there, we'd have to determine if we're willing to trust that they didn't alter texts. Two links wouldn't be necessary, but we could put in two links. We have a field for the text URL, and a field for an "Other URL" if there is one.
