[Foundation-l] [Commons-l] PD-art and official "position of the WMF"

Tue Aug 26 00:11:03 UTC 2008

geni skrev:
> 2008/8/25 John at Darkstar <vacuum at jeb.no>:
>>> 1) Reusers of this content. We have to tell people that the media is PD,
>> but actually it may not be so PD in their country, so you have to know your
>>
>> local legislation to know if you can reuse it or not.
>>
>> In Norway there is no such thing as PD.
>> John
> 
> Huh? Yes chapter 6 does give some some pretty strong moral rights but
> copyright expires after life+70.
> 

Sorry, not much solutions here, mostly just a bunch of new questions.

The exclusive rights to control the use of the works vanishes, but the
overall rights does not transform into something like public domain.
[http://www.lovdata.no/all/hl-19610512-002.html] I think it is a common
misconception to call this "moral rights". Its in the law, and as such
they are binding.

I have several times tried to get lawyers to explain "public domain" in
a Norwegian context. So far none has been willing to do such a thing. If
there is any such written explanation I sure would be glad to get a note
about it.

One expert opinion I got was that CC-by-sa-nd was within the law,
CC-by-sa could be within the law, and CC-by and CC was not according to
the law. Same person said that because you have to adjust them to the
law they simply got the same limitations as CC-by-sa. Because someone
could refuse to accept a specific derivative work he said CC-by-sa-nd
would be more comparative to the Norwegian law. He also said that
nd-type of licenses was a lot more flexible then we regards them, and
that adaption to suit a specific use, even cropping and color adjusting,
would be well within what is acceptable. (This is somewhat out of the
question for us as CC-by-nd -type of work are voted out, on this grounds
I can't understand why)

Another person said that if someone still alive donated a work on given
terms, ie GFDL or whatever, then it would be very difficult to change
that will. When I asked if she could say that they couldn't change if,
she wouldn't say that for sure. That could potentially create a problem
when someone donates work under a specific license, then that person
dies and his or hers heirs then revokes the license. (Probably we could
just drop the use as they have to make such a revoke of the license
known somehow)

I've also asked about the GFDL, and the thing about the five most
prominent contributors. That is interesting, as it seems like the "main
creators" of a work can do more or less as they chooses, without regard
to contributors, but all of them has to be attributed. GFDL used in a
Norwegian context then has to identify all creators of the work.
(Identifying creators are a mess, compared to contributors. The easiest
way is to go for the last.)

A problem is then, does the concept of «creating a work» changes over
time? Ie, is a creation easier when the work is small?

Then we have the §41a which say; Den som første gang rettmessig gjør
tilgjengelig for allmennheten et åndsverk som ikke er blitt
offentliggjort innen utløpet av vernetiden etter §§ 40 og 41, tilkommer
samme rett som en opphavsmann etter § 2. Denne rett varer i 25 år etter
utløpet av det år verket første gang ble gjort tilgjengelig for
allmennheten.

In short, if someone finds an old work of art, and publishes it after
the 70th year of the creation or the death of the creator, then he gets
the exclusive rights for 25 years. Now, assume a wikipedian that finds
an old image in a book. He checks and finds that the original creator
has went to dust, so he uses it. Then we gets sued because the publisher
of the book has the exclusive rights to the image! (Probably we can
claim that we didn't know, and then remove all use of the image)

John