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Discontinued Courses – Public Domain / Ac | ||
Tags: Legal File Sharing | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4050 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes  Studies: German | Message 1 of 9 03 November 2013 at 3:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This is more of a legal question than a linguistic one and I suspect that I already know the answer. Many of us have come across some very good language courses that have been discontinued by their publishers, the texts and audio recordings of which are now very difficult to find. Although there are hundreds of examples, one comes immediately to mind: the Living Language “Ultimate” courses. I have noticed that bloggers ask one another if they know where copies can be found. As time passes, commercial stocks dwindle and, for those who seek help or wish to offer it, the legal question of sharing the publishers’ discontinued files crops up. So here are my questions:
At what point does a proprietary publication (such as Living Language “Ultimate” courses: text and audio files) fall into the “Public Domain” and can be shared legally? Are there any existing websites (similar to the god-send “FSI-Language-Course.com”) where these courses can be posted and subsequently downloaded? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 9 03 November 2013 at 4:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
In the US, anything older than 1923 is generally in the public domain. Up to about 1963, it depends on whether the copyright was renewed, which you can only determine via legal research. After 1963, it's safe to assume everything is copyrighted, and will probably remain so until long after everyone at HTLAL is dead of old age. Here's a more detailed discussion. See also Project Gutenberg's copyright FAQ. In other countries, the exact dates differ, and there are a few works like Peter Pan which are subject to special, one-off laws. It can get quite complicated. So I'm afraid this won't help very much with language courses, unless they're exceptionally old, or you have serious legal resources to show show that a work in the 1923–1963 has definitively fallen into the public domain in several countries. Personally, I find this to be tragic: We're developing a cultural blindspot starting in the mid-1920s. See this remarkable graph. Edited by emk on 03 November 2013 at 5:12pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5318 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 3 of 9 03 November 2013 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | |||||
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BTW, in Canada, most works are in the Public Domain after 50 years. I.e. if you got a website in Canada, you could theoretically offer books whose authors died before 1963 for download, but only Canadians (and citizens of other Life+50 countries) could legally download them.
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| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4050 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 4 of 9 04 November 2013 at 6:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thank you very much for your enlightening comments. The situation is worse than I suspected. I find it particularly discouraging that Random House (Living Language) has adopted a practice of "I don't want it, but you can't have it" and, when asked permission to share the audio files, choose to ignore the question and deign not even reply (I sent them 12 Emails that went unanswered).
While the current situation does NOT justify the existence of pirate websites that from which current and discontinued language courses can be -- illegally -- downloaded, it does help explain their popularity. As an aside, my intention was NOT to embark on a discussion of the pirate websites; rather, I was wondering about the legal means of sharing files. Should a discussion of pirate language-course websites be initiated, I presume that the administrators of this blog would suppress it. Thanks again! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 5 of 9 04 November 2013 at 7:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The Living Language Ultimate courses are widely available in US libraries. My local library is very small and has a ton of them. If your library does not have them I am certain they can get them on interlibrary loan transfer. Also, not too long ago they were for sale on Amazon and other used books sites for fairly reasonable prices.
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| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4249 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 9 05 November 2013 at 7:15am | IP Logged | |||||
This was similar to the reason why illegal music downloads were so popular in the late 1990s/early 2000s. People wanted their music in mp3 format, but the music publishers wouldn't sell it to them. Once legal music started becoming available, especially at the $.99/song rate that people were willing to pay, illegal file sharing became less popular because there was an easy way to get the files in the format that they wanted legally. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4907 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 7 of 9 10 November 2013 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
What the industry won in the whole fight against downloading mp3's, is that they got people to believe that sharing copies of music is illegal. Their case against Napster was not that sharing copies was illegal (because it wasn't in the USA); their case was that Napster was profiting from it. I don't know if the law has changed since then (I don't live in the USA anymore), but I heard an interview with one of the lawyers against Napster, and he admitted that there is nothing illegal with copying and sharing music, as long as you don't profit from it. The law making this legal came up in the days vcrs became popular. Were we all breaking the law when we recorded a TV show? No. Were we breaking the law if we lent or gave a tape to a friend? In the USA, the answer became no. In the UK, however, it is still illegal to rip a CD and put it on my own computer or mp3 player. (Or it was 3 years ago when I checked). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 8 of 9 10 November 2013 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
When talking about US law, be very careful not to confuse music with video, books, language courses, and other forms of media. The copyright laws which apply to music have many special exemptions, including the one you're thinking of:
This exemption doesn't apply to video recordings, scanning books, or anything else along those lines. Those activities fall under "fair use", a much more nebulous part of the law, and one which I'm not qualified to discuss in detail. (Most lawyers will say, "Well, it depends on the following four-prong test, but even then judges tend to decide on a case-by-case basis according to…", which is lawyer-speak for, "I have a general idea, but there are no guarantees in your particular case.") 1 person has voted this message useful |
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