Is Project Gutenberg Australia vulnerable to being shut down? (was Germ of an idea for a "Project Gramophone")

Roy wrote:
> Jon Noring wrote:

>> I'm also under the understanding that Canadian and Australian
>> copyright terms are different than that of U.S. copyright law, and
>> that many recordings still under copyright in the U.S. have lapsed in
>> Canada and Australia. Could a server be placed either in Canada or
>> Australia to archive and distribute this class of works? What legal
>> restrictions would those online archives be under regarding access
>> from the U.S.?

> Frankly, to be beyond the reach of US courts, you need to not be a
> resident of the US, have no attachable assets in the US and have your
> server hosted by a company with no contacts in the US. That might not
> stop US companies from trying to influence your operations. The RIAA
> sued the Australian company which runs the Kazaa network.
>
> Attempting to filter out US addresses is unkilely to satisfy US
> litigants. A New York resident who ran servers in Canada streaming US
> television content to Canadian residents was sucessfully ordered to
> stop his operation.

Interesting.

The existing public domain archive for ebooks is Project Gutenberg (http://promo.net/pg/ ). They are fast approaching 10,000 works. Now to get to the interesting part...

Someone decided to setup a Project Gutenberg Australia to archive and distribute texts which are Public Domain in Australia (by the 50 years after death of the author rule), but still covered under copyright in the U.S. (which is most works published since 1923.) Examples of authors and their works represented in PG Australia (and still covered under U.S. copyright) include: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Willa Cather, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, F. Scott Fitzgerald, D.H. Lawrence, Sinclair Lewis, George Orwell (Animal Farm, 1984), George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Edith Wharton, and Virginia Woolf, to name but a few. These are some pretty big names, and many of their books are still good sellers in the U.S. (For PG Australia, see http://gutenberg.net.au/ )

Anyway, even if PG Australia was carefully organized by Australians, and the server is in Australia, there are still obvious ties to the U.S. movement. For example, the name "Project Gutenberg" is shared between the two. Also, I believe that Michael Hart (the founder of Project Gutenberg) counts the books in PG Australia as part of the entire world-wide Project Gutenberg collection (hopefully someone from PG will see this and comment.) Michael does periodically mention PG Australia, of course with the caveat that those residing in countries where the works are still copyrighted may not download them. It would not surprise me if there are a few other informal ties between the American and Australian organizations (the other obvious one is that PG Australia is focused on converting works which *are* copyrighted in the U.S. but public domain in Australia -- this shows some sort of understood collaboration between the two organizations.)

It is also obvious that the PG Australia server does not attempt to filter out download requests from the U.S. -- it is an open server, completely open to the world. It does state that its works may not be downloaded to anyone residing in a country where such works are still covered under copyright. Specifically, they state: "Do not download or read these books online if you are in a country where copyright protections can extend more than 50 years past an author's death. The author's estate and publishers still retain their legal and moral rights to oversee the work in those countries." See: http://gutenberg.net.au/plusfifty.html

Anyway, from what Roy opined, Project Gutenberg in the U.S., and Michael Hart, its founder, is in legal peril simply because of the existence of Project Gutenberg Australia. And, could PG Australia itself be shutdown under Australian law (and its treaty obligations) because they don't try to prevent downloads from requests made from the U.S.?

Now, if there is a "formula" by which online archives can legally/ safely carry and distribute works of mixed international copyright status, such as Project Gutenberg Australia, there are several people in various countries who would like to know what that "formula" is.

(As an aside, I know that Project Gutenberg carries and distributes (via an open server) a few works which are public domain in the U.S., but which are still under copyright in other countries, such as those authored before 1923 by someone who did not die until after 1953. In addition, the PG archives are mirrored in many places, and none of them attempt to restrict downloading from countries where the works under question are still copyrighted. Is PG thus vulnerable in the U.S. to lawsuit for simply doing this, and could it even be shut down with an adverse enough judgement?)

Thanks.

Jon Noring Received on Mon Aug 11 2003 - 21:47:28 GMT