Re: public domain and distribution

On 1/October/1999, MJ Devaney <mdevaney[_at_]toexcel.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks to everyone for their help on this. Let me see if I can collate
> the various responses:
>
> Stephen Fishman notes that if a work is PD in the U.S. but still under
> copyright in a foreign country, a publisher would need permission from
> the copyright owner to distribute it in the foreign country. Jeroen
> Hellingman from the Netherlands says that he is able to buy. e.g.,
> Dover editions of books by non-US authors that are PD in the US but
> still protected in Europe via amazon and other on-line companies, but
> Joseph Pietro Riolo says Dover won't mail certain books to certain
> countries. The picture that I'm getting from these responses is that
> one can't distribute a book in a country where that book's still
> protected from within the borders of that country or from a website in
> that country. So, a US publisher couldn't sell a book still protected
> in the UK or in Europe at amazon.de or amazon.uk without obtaining
> permission from the copyright owner, but could sell it it amazon.com
> without such permission . A US publisher could take an order over the
> phone from a customer in the UK or in Europe for a book and ship it to
> him/her, but couldn't use a distribution service in the UK to sell the
> book there.
>
> Do I have it right that the crux of this matter is where physically one
> sells the book from?

I am afraid that (from the UK perspective) it is not as easy as that; the rights granted to a copyright owner include the right to issue copies to the public in the UK, so a local distributor is clearly out, but there are also "secondary infringements" (essentially requiring knowledge) concerning among other things [and I am writing this from memory without precise citations of the language] importation in the course of business (unresolved question - is Amazon or the customer the importer) and displaying for sale an infringing copy (which these grey imports would be). In other words, selling a PD book from Amazon.com could still be an infringement and as that is the view of the UK publishers, there may be a test case at some point.

John Enser
Olswang, solicitors
http://www.olswang.co.uk/
<jxe[_at_]olswang.co.uk>

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