rafal Diglot Groupie Poland besmart.pl Joined 6860 days ago 83 posts - 85 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC1 Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 9 of 14 07 October 2008 at 10:06am | IP Logged |
I'd say that most of other countries' copyright laws don't protect government documents or works created by goverment clerks during their duty (such as FSI).
As for Fair Use it seems to be very limited in the US. I believe you can't even make a photo copy of a book or print a book from a file at Kinko's without a letter from a publisher...
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Topsiderunner Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6924 days ago 215 posts - 218 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 10 of 14 07 October 2008 at 10:16am | IP Logged |
I don't want to push this too off-topic, but if you ever been engaged in the endless debates on Wikipedia over what media can and cannot be used, you will find that "fair use" is a concept that is much more protected in the US because of court decisions than most other countries. Similarly, most other governments do not release their works into the public domain; this is why Wikipedia is populated by images from NASA, USGS, the US military, etc, and why many pictures of foreign leaders on Wikipedia were taken by US government employees.
As for the topic at hand, the best thing to do might be just to email the company and ask. They might get defensive about it, but it couldn't hurt to hear what they have to say.
Edited by Topsiderunner on 07 October 2008 at 10:16am
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6445 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 11 of 14 07 October 2008 at 10:56am | IP Logged |
Topsiderunner wrote:
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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That isn't a correction. It's perfectly possible to believe that some laws regarding copyright are good and others are outrageous. I certainly consider the current length of copyrights in the USA to be ridiculous.
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Topsiderunner Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6924 days ago 215 posts - 218 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Italian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 12 of 14 07 October 2008 at 11:30am | IP Logged |
I would agree wholeheartedly. All I was saying is that one should not make generalizations about "copyright laws," because as even this thread on Assimil demonstrates, it's the details that count. US copyright law with regard to the length a person can protect his or her work is too long, but at the same time fair use is much more generous and legally protected.
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rafal Diglot Groupie Poland besmart.pl Joined 6860 days ago 83 posts - 85 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC1 Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 13 of 14 07 October 2008 at 11:55am | IP Logged |
You're right, some aspects of Fair Use in the US might be more generous (I've just read an article on Wikipedia on that). But still I find being unable to make a legal copy of a book rather "unfair".
The two things I like about the US copyright law are that all books published before 1923 are not protected regardless of when the author died as well as books published between 1923 and 1963 whose authors didn't renew their copyright on time. That makes it so much easier than the 70-years-after-author's-death rule to check if a book is in public domain or not.
Topsiderunner wrote:
As for the topic at hand, the best thing to do might be just to email the company and ask. They might get defensive about it, but it couldn't hurt to hear what they have to say. |
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There's nothing in it for them so I see no reason why they would want to allow to have their books and/or recordings redistributed for free. Cainntear observed aptly that a 50 years old Assimil would still be a competition for their newer products.
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Avaldi Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 5890 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, ItalianA2 Studies: Russian, Romanian
| Message 14 of 14 17 October 2008 at 4:56pm | IP Logged |
In Spain it's legal to download free books, music or DVDs for your own use. And you can share it if it's for free.
It should be like that everywhere.
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