Post originally by Zoran Bekric at 2003-07-28 20:42:17
Converted from Phorums BB System



Dan wrote:
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<i>Zoran tried to change the topic after his error was pointed out by saying:</i>
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What error was that, pray tell?

I never said that <i>The Invisible Man</i> wasn't in the public domain now, I simply pointed out that American copyright law doesn't apply worldwide. How is that an error?

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<i>It's not "piracy" if it's in the public domain. Public domain is meant for the good of the people, freely usable for everyone. It's only "piracy" if it's still covered by copyright.</i>
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It is piracy if you are using a local legal technicality to invalidate still existing copyright -- which is what you are describing by insisting on using U.S. copyright law rather than that of the works country of origin. That's what the old Soviet Union used to do with the works of popular American writers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs all the time and the U.S. didn't like it much. It comes across as sheerest hypocrisy for you to now turn around and present the same argument.

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<i>And it's not a legal "technicality" either, it's how the law was knowingly created and intended to be followed in the United States. It's not wrong to point out and follow the laws as they are applied in one's own country.</i>
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It is a technicality when you use the law created and intended to be followed in the United States to deprive works created and published in other countries of their proper protection under copyright.

<i>The Invisible Man</i> was first published in Great Britain. Unless you can demonstrate otherwise, your argument is so much nonsense.

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<i>And, I must say, trying to turn this into an anti-America bash is just pathetic.</i>
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How is it anti-American to point out how British copyright law applies to a British book written by a British writer and published in Great Britain?

You're assuming that U.S. copyright law is the only one that matters. It isn't. I'm not bringing in French copyright law or German or Japanese because they're not relevant. But British copyright law is when it comes to a British work.

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<i>You also said:
"The Invisible Man was written by a British author and first published in Great Britain. What part of that is going over your head? "

A) It doesn't matter because it's public domain EVERYWHERE, including the UK, and:</i>
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I never claimed otherwise.

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<i>B) First publication doesn't matter. If it was published in the U.S. (and it was), it follows U.S. laws for when it would become public domain in the U.S., not British or French or Australian. That'd make most of these examples you are using have copyrights expired on the order of 50 years or so before you seem to think they should, depending upon how quickly the author died and if they renewed the copyrights (as renewals were not automatic originally).

Continually quoting British laws and expecting them to hold up for the United States and the rest of the world is pointless.</i>
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Yet you continually quote U.S. copyright law and expect it to apply to material created outside the U.S. You say that if under U.S. law something is in the public domain, then no other legal system matters. Sorry, but it does.

<i>The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen</i> is produced by 20th Century Fox (an American studio), features actors of various nationalities (British, American, Indian, Australian, Czech, etc.), was filmed in the Czech Republic and is intended for worldwide (not just American) release. As such, it is subject to more than just American copyright law.

Stop trying to impose U.S. law on everyone else.

Regards,

Zoran