The Australian copyright on Gone With The Wind has expired, but the U.S. copyright has not (thanks to Bono copyright extension). Project Gutenberg of Australia has understandably decided that the book is in the public domain under Australian law and is disseminating an open-access edition from its web site. The heirs of author Margaret Mitchell are demanding a halt to the dissemination and threatening to sue the US-based Project Gutenberg for copyright infringement. David Rothman has a very good summary of the details on Teleread. (Thanks to LIS News.)
(PS: One the one hand, it's true that users from the U.S. or any other country can download the book from the Australian site. On the other hand, if that were a reason for the Australian site to take down the book, then suddenly all countries in the world would have a term of copyright effectively equal to the longest term in force anywhere. Conversely, of course, if it were not, then all countries in the world would have a term of copyright effectively equal to the shortest in force anywhere. Since either resolution is likely to equalize copyright terms around the world, de facto if not de jure, this issue is much too important to depend on a lawyer's cease-and-desist letter to a cash-strapped non-profit. Project Gutenberg of Australia needs some serious legal and financial help.)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 10/27/2004 08:21:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
