Hebrew Open Source

[DaniGirl1967]

I contacted Project Ben-Yehuda, which is the Israeli equivalent of the Gutenberg Project, and asked them if I can use scans of their public domain material to record for LibriVox.
They replied that they would be happy for me to do so and, when projects are recorded, would like to create a link from their site to the recording.

Is that acceptable?

All the Best,
Daniela Koiman

[TriciaG]

If the scans show the copyright date on them, such that we can verify they're PD in the US, then yes, the source should be fine to use. (Just because it's PD in Israel doesn't make it PD in the USA, and vice versa.)

When the project is cataloged, they can either link to our LibriVox catalog page for it or directly to the Archive page. (Archive is where the final files are stored; our catalog page's links point to the files on Archive.)

Make sense?

[Kazbek]

We've had some discussions about Project Ben-Yehuda in the multilingual collection. The difficulty with using their texts at LV is that they don't provide scans and often don't even mention the date of publication of the edition which they transcribed. If we know the publication/copyright date that appeared in the front matter of the edition they used, and it's more than 95 years old, then we can use it. Otherwise, we can't.

Michael

[DaniGirl1967]

Hi,

The public domain laws in Israel are virtually identical to those of the European Union. Public domain is achieved 70 years after the death of the author or translator.
Project Ben-Yehuda does post the year of publication - at least on the works that I've viewed.

Is it ok that there isn't a scanned copy? I know that they scan the works that they transcribe, but I don't know how to access those scanned copies.

All the Best,
Daniela

[Kazbek]

LibriVox is bound by US laws, which are different. We follow a simplified version, summarized here:

https://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Copyright_and_Public_Domain#Determining_Public_Domain_Status

If PBY now gives the year of publication, that's great. We just need to make sure it refers to the publication of the edition transcribed and not when the work itself was first published. When classics are transcribed for free access in Europe, it's often based on a recent edition, since there's no motivation for seeking out an old book under EU laws.

Our sister site, https://legamus.eu/, hosts recordings of texts that are in the public domain in "death+70" countries, but not in the US.

Michael

[DaniGirl1967]

Hi!

I contacted Project Ben Yehuda about these concerns. They assure me that the date of publication that appears online is the date of publication of the actual text being transcribed. They said that at this time they cannot pass along the scanned copies, although they do make scanned copies. I think their website is not done developing yet. Funny how that happens when one depends on donations...
They also said that they can make a very long list of works that meet LibriVox criteria.

All the Best,
Daniela

[Kazbek]

Thanks for checking, Daniela. That's great. Project Ben Yehuda is a reputable organization, so if they give the year of publication of the edition they transcribed, that should be enough. If they would like to compile a list of works on their site transcribed from editions published in 1927 or earlier, we could post it in this forum for easy reference, and perhaps expand it later, when other transcriptions on their site enter public domain in the US.

Michael

[annise]

Maybe the wiki would be a better place - it's easier to have more people able to keep it up to date - and for it not to get lost in a ever-growing number of posts and discussions about copyright

Anne

[Kazbek]

That's a good point, Anne. Perhaps keep the list on the wiki and put a link to it at the top of a thread in this form for discussing Hebrew sources, like we have for other languages.

Michael