copyright--pragmatic approach

[Edward Dumanis]

While trying to avoid to appear too THEORETICAL, I do not see any light in the tunnel. For
example, one needs a permission to translate copyrighted materials, or to include a stoty
in an anthology to be published. That person would have to convince the publisher that
everything is within the legal framework. So, forget the law firms. Most of the time, one
would need to know whether the work is in the public domain , or not, just for a standard
publishing process.
And what does it mean that the work was created in the Russian Federation? Does it mean
that Maxim Gorky's works written in Russia are covered by one set of laws, and the ones
written abroad are covered differently? Something is wrong here.
My understanding is that an intellectual property is not in the public domain only when it
has an alive author who neither placed it in the public domain, nor transferred his/her
rights to another entity which neither placed it in the public domain, nor transferred the
rights to another entity, and so on; or the author has died less then the specified time
ago (50 or 70 years, it is clear for me how many at this time), and no authorized transfer
of the itellectual property in the public domain has occurred. Otherwise, the intellectual
property is in the public domain.

Sincerely,

Edward Dumanis <dumanis at buffalo.edu>

Steven Hill wrote:

> Dear colleagues:
>
> One gets the impression that much of the SEELANGS discussion about copyright has been
> conducted on the theoretical level, like a group of attorneys communicating with each
> other in a legal seminar.
>
> There's also the PRACTICAL side, of course.  As regards publications, films, and other
> "products," that were created in the Russian Federation (previously in the USSR), it
> seems likely that most such products do NOT have very many eagle-eyed defenders (i.e.,
> law firms) in the USA, zealously looking out to protect those products from
> "encroachments" by impecunious little academics like us, who might occasionally make
> modest non-commercial use of those products. (We call it "fair use.")  If any such US
> law firms exist (hired by Russian authors, publishers, distributors), they probably have
> much bigger fish to fry.

............................../snip/...................................

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