copyright--pragmatic approach (4)

[Janice Pilch]

Dear Edward,

I appreciate your questions, and would like to reply to your 
points separately, I think that will be easier. 

>>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? 

It means that the work was created, but not published, in the 
Russian Federation--a work such as a manuscript, a private 
letter, etc. A work created there and not published is 
governed by Russian copyright law. A work written in Russia 
but first published in France will be governed by French 
copyright law, because France will be considered the country 
of origin.

To repeat from my earlier message today, copyright operates 
largely on the basis of the country of origin. For published 
works, this is generally the country where the work was first 
published. For unpublished works, the country of origin is 
based on other criteria such as nationality or habitual 
residence of the author. This is often described as the 
country that has the closest relationship to the author.

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? 

Yes, that's what it means, but there are cases where a court 
would determine that a stay abroad does not constitute enough 
to make the country the "country that has the closest 
relationship to the author." If an American writes a poem on 
a week-long trip to Paris, that poem is unlikely to be 
governed by French copyright law. If a Russian is exiled to 
France, spends 30 years there, and considers it his home, his 
works written there will probably be considered to be 
copyrighted there, even if he eventually moves back to Russia 
after those 30 years. But it depends on the exact 
circumstances--it is dangerous to generalize too much.

It is easier with published works. As we know, Alexander 
Solzhenitsyn’s early novels, including August 1914, Cancer 
Ward, First Circle, and Gulag Archipelago, were first 
published in the west and only later were published in 
Russia. The country of origin is the country where the novel 
was first published--France, Germany, England, etc. His 
novels are governed by all sorts of different laws. Use of 
his works in the U.S. involves knowing the status of 
copyright relations between the U.S. and the country of 
origin of the particular work. 

>>Something is wrong here.

You bet. That is why the World Intellectual Property 
Organization, the WTO, and governments worldwide are trying 
to harmonize their copyright laws, to create some 
consistency. But there is a long way to go, if this is even 
possible.  

>>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.

This is basically accurate, but keep in mind that copyright 
terms in some countries, including the U.S., are still based 
in part on older laws that did not base duration on the life 
of the author. Until the U.S. adopted the 1976 Copyright Act 
that went into effect in 1978, copyright was governed by the 
1909 Copyright Act which calculated copyright on the basis of 
the date of publication. U.S. terms are very confusing, 
because the new law kept aspects of the old law intact. Only 
works created and/or published after 1978 are uniformly 
calculated on the basis of "life plus" 70 years. 

I do hope this has clarified something--

Sincerely,

Janice Pilch


>>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/.........................
..........
>
----------------------------------------
Janice T. Pilch, Assistant Professor of Library Administration
Acting Head, Acquisitions, Slavic and East European Library
Librarian for South Slavic Studies and Slavic Languages & Literatures
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
1408 West Gregory Drive, Urbana, IL 61801
Tel. (217) 244-9399  E-mail: pilch at uiuc.edu