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Old Assimil Audio -- Is Legal to Copy | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| rafal Diglot Groupie Poland besmart.pl Joined 6860 days ago 83 posts - 85 votes  2 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC1 Studies: German, Spanish | Message 1 of 14 29 September 2008 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been researching copyright laws, and especially the public domain aspects of it, for the last few months now and it occured to me a few days ago that old Assimil audio might be free to copy and share.
But not in the United States which have outrageous copyright laws. Under European Union's copyright law (and of other countries possibly) you are free to copy, share, modify etc. without copyright owner's permission sound recordings that were published more than 50 years ago. That means that all Assimil audios from 1957 and older are in public domain or just free to share within the European Union countries. In the US sound recordings are protected for 95 years. In Australia for 70 years (I believe). If you're from another country you have to research your country's copyright laws. But even if your country's copyright law protects sound recordings for more than 50 years there might still be a chance for you called "Rule of the shorter term". That is, some countries adopted the rule which says that if a work (e.g. a sound recording) is no longer protected by the copyright law of the country of origin, then it's also not protected by this other country's copyright law. For example, if normally the work would be protected in Canada due to a longer copyright protection but in the country of origin (France in the case of Assimil) it's no longer protected, then under the Rule of the shorter term the work isn't protected in Canada, too. The list of countries that adopted the Rule of the shorter term can be found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_the_shorter_term. Please note that the book IS protected in the EU for 70 years after death of the author, in the US it's 95 years (although it's a bit more complicated here), in Canada it's 50 years I believe and in Australia if the author died before 1955 (or 1956?). Does anyone know when did Alphonse Cherel die? That'd be crucial for further research. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TDC Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6927 days ago 261 posts - 291 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French Studies: Esperanto, Ukrainian, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Persian | Message 2 of 14 04 October 2008 at 10:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good to know. But I doubt Assimil's going to come knocking on your door for sharing its books from the 50's.
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| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6086 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 14 05 October 2008 at 10:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know when he died, but I know he was born in 1882.
TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rafal Diglot Groupie Poland besmart.pl Joined 6860 days ago 83 posts - 85 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC1 Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 14 05 October 2008 at 10:50am | IP Logged | ||
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TDC: Sure, but sharing its books would be illegal. They're like $5 a piece anyway.
At the same time you could share, buy or sell copies of the recordings legally. Quite often they're expensive, hard to digitize and rare. We could chip in to buy the old gramophone/cassette recordings and then share the digitized recording among the participants. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sajro Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6002 days ago 129 posts - 131 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 14 05 October 2008 at 7:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Just like that months-old thread about distributing Michel Thomas labels fit for CD albums. It doesn't hurt the makers. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6017 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 6 of 14 07 October 2008 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Erm... a 50 year old Assimil would be in competition with the current one, so distributing the books if still under copyright would be a Bad Idea.
Even if the recordings are out of copyright*, you may have to distribute them under another name -- Assimil is a registered trademark. Having the name inside the recording won't be a problem, but advertising with the trademark would be. *I'm not too sure about the intricacies of copyright in recordings, but even if the recording copyright has expired, copyright may still subsist on the scripts. I'm personally very confused by this: OK, I don't have to pay the performers if I want to redistribute it, but what about the writer? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rafal Diglot Groupie Poland besmart.pl Joined 6860 days ago 83 posts - 85 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC1 Studies: German, Spanish | Message 7 of 14 07 October 2008 at 6:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I believe you don't have to care about the writer as long as you don't distribute the book or transcripts or so I was told on one of copyright law-advice forums.
As for trademark protection, you're right. Edited by rafal on 07 October 2008 at 6:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Topsiderunner Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6924 days ago 215 posts - 218 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written) | Message 8 of 14 07 October 2008 at 9:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Just to correct you sir, it is the "outrageous copyright laws" that allow us all to enjoy FSI courses for free and permit a much greater extent of "fair use" claims than most other nations. Every country has its own positives and negatives in its copyright laws.
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