Librivox clearance procedures?

JHutch · Post by **JHutch** » April 23rd, 2007, 1:10 pm

As some of you may know, I'm the guy (nut?) bringing the Librivox files over into Project Gutenberg. I've run into some issues with clearances (ie, legal legwork that the work is really public domain in the US) on some of the files. Basically, if the audio was read from a PG file, it's no problem. We just piggy-back on the original clearance work from PG.

The problem comes in when the source it is read from is from somewhere else. For instance, I'm working on some German files right now that look like the original came from gutenberg.de.

This stuff looks pretty old so I'm pretty darn sure it is clearable, but I was wondering if Librivox keeps any such clearance documentation? This would be something along the lines of the title page and verso page of the original paper source. Or if the copyright is held by someone, a legal letter saying they have given permission for the work to be released as public domain or non-profit use, etc.

With work taken from another site, they probably did the leg work for copyright clearance, but in gutenberg.de's case, it was probably clearance for Germany. What about the US copyright clearance (which may very well be different status)?

If anyone has any information on this (or even just how Librivox handles the legal "cover your @ss" aspects of copyright law), I'd appreciate the info. I've got 18 audio files ready to post today, but 9 of them are on hold pending concrete copyright clearance information. And, you know, I'm lazy. I don't want to track down physical copies to make clearance scans of the title and verso if someone else has done the legwork.

Thanks in advance,
Josh

raynr · Post by **raynr** » April 23rd, 2007, 1:47 pm

Hello Josh,

we carefully pay attention to the copyright and laid down the rules here:
http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/CopyrightAndPublicDomain
So every work should really be in the public domain. If we have any doubts, we wait for clearance from you - Gutenberg. But we will discuss if we should do an exact documentation of our copyright clearance.

Rainer

JHutch · Post by **JHutch** » April 23rd, 2007, 1:51 pm

Thanks for the quick reply.

If you could ... how about a clarification of what would constitute "no doubt" (and therefore, no formal clearance done) or "any doubt" (and a formal clearance from Gutenberg)?

Thanks again,
Josh

Post by **hugh** » April 23rd, 2007, 2:32 pm

hi josh, in parallel, greg newby sent me an email, to which i responded ... essentially, i think it would be worthwhile for both of us, if we could clear everything not on PG through you guys - ideally with a very specific set of requirements from our end. i think we have most of this covered, but it's still not a totally formalized process, which would be nice...

JHutch · Post by **JHutch** » April 23rd, 2007, 3:36 pm

hugh wrote:hi josh, in parallel, greg newby sent me an email, to which i responded ... essentially, i think it would be worthwhile for both of us, if we could clear everything not on PG through you guys - ideally with a very specific set of requirements from our end. i think we have most of this covered, but it's still not a totally formalized process, which would be nice...

Sounds good.

If you need help understanding the clearance process at PG, give me a holler.

JHutch

kri · Post by **kri** » April 24th, 2007, 4:31 pm

The page linked below will help you a bit with how we work out PD status of works not on Gutenberg (US).

http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/CopyrightAndPublicDomain

In short, we check LOC.gov, or the WorldCat for publication information of the work that is to be read.

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » April 26th, 2007, 5:13 pm

There are a couple of books that I have run through PG's Copyright Clearance process. Books are generally pretty easy.

I closely follow PG's copyright process when checking on individual short stories and poems but haven't been submitting each one for clearance but we certainly can put those through the PG process too.

If you have specific examples in mind, please feel free to post them here and we can sort them out =)

Cloud Mountain · Post by **Cloud Mountain** » April 28th, 2007, 9:31 am

Pardon my stepping in...

It is so very good to occasionally have a small glimpse into the world of responsible worker-bees usually found only behind the scenes. Makes me once again so grateful to be working with and so amazed at all of the fine working folks here and so much of the work that goes unseen. I suspect for every posting they make here they send 30 PM's behind the scenes...

Thank you TC and Kri and the many others of you.
Fine jobs you are doing!

Shurtagal · Post by **Shurtagal** » May 1st, 2007, 11:13 pm

Ditto Allan - After seeing conversations like this it gives me a new admiration for all the hard work that goes into LibriVox. YAY Admins!!!!