The US has (due to lobbying) repeatedly having many of its IP laws extend well beyond the death of the author. Disney is the major lobbyist and driver. This lets them keep all their classic characters under lock and key. I think it's now 75 years beyond the death of the author. They have also seen to it that in many trade treaties and in other ways that their view of IP extends into other countries. They aren't the only country that has companies looking for these sorts of protections, but theirs is the most aggressive lobby and arguable the most effective.

Some countries allows creating different media backups and that would imply format shifting I think.

The reason there's going to be challenges: Something like a forum can have international contributors. The laws in each country could be different. The home country for the forum might indicate in terms of use that it is governed by state X's laws, but then the countries some of the contribute from have laws that say (in some areas, and I suspect IP law too) that THEIR laws apply to a range of situations notwithstanding other jurisdiction's claims.

This patchwork is about as bothersome and frustrating as the whole geofencing for digital content - supposedly created to allow different monetization approaches in different regions, but practically it has led to much product not being available in many places.

We've let lobbying and corporate wishes (which threw money at our various governments and people running for same and which pled their sad stories before various government committees) dictate digital storage, usage, and geofencing (or lack thereof). They've also failed to protect privacy as completely as it should be, though Europe is better than most.

Usually when we hit some vexing case, with old materials of limited circulation, it seems a ridiculous prohibition or an onerous requirement to get around the limits. The laws are written for current stuff to which big $$$ pertain and they just don't care about how much trouble it causes in areas where no money of any significance would be impacted.

On Wed, Sep 9, 2020 at 7:08 AM Brett Kruger <xxxxxx@kruger.id.au> wrote:

Tom,

 

That may depend on each countries’ copyright laws.

 

For example, I work in a school here in Australia. We’re allowed to format shift (i.e. change the media works are stored on) as  long as 1. We retain the original works & 2. The information is only allowed to be viewed by staff and students.

 

I’m sure Timothy C will know a lot more specific to the UK.

 

Also I think (I could very well be wrong) that after a certain amount of time, after the author’s death maybe, that works move into the public domain? I only learned a bit of copyright law because our librarian tells me off.

 

Brett.

 

From: xxxxxx@simplelists.com <xxxxxx@simplelists.com> On Behalf Of xxxxxx@gmail.com
Sent: Wednesday, 9 September 2020 7:09 PM
To: The Traveller Mailing List <xxxxxx@simplelists.com>
Subject: Re: [TML] HIWG CD Notes

 

There's an odd situation here:


There is information (note the distinction between files) that was at one time released to the public. Most of it likely was legit to do that for, though some may have been not 100% permitted.

Yet, for most of the world, some of those files are as good as destroyed due to old formats.

I don't think there was any statements about making available *the same information* in different formats, but it was not explicitly permitted and the language around alterations/changes may be seen as precluding that.

 

This seems to be a general problem that applies to information created and stores digitally versus dead-tree products (or things carved into stellae). And it is (to my knowledge) never taken into account by those drafting licenses for the digital content. They really should separate the information itself as a protected IP from the file formats/etc and permit changes to formats so the data can continue to exist in the public domain.

 

It seems relatively inane to make every person who has what is or was a publicly distributed item go through hoops to change a format. That's an absurdity at best.

 

TomB

 

On Tue, Sep 8, 2020 at 7:47 AM Brett Kruger <xxxxxx@kruger.id.au> wrote:

[snip]

In ART:

Many of the JPG files in this folder are also misnamed AOL ART files. See the comments above. There are several WPG files; these will open with LibreOffice Draw. There is a file SUBSECTO.000; I cannot identify the type of this file, nor find its file signature ("magic number") of ÇEÏS [C7 49 CF 53]. Word does not recognize it and will make a hash of the conversion; LibreOffice also opens it as hash.

In ART/ADLER:

Some of the GIF files in this folder are also misnamed AOL ART files. See the comments above. IrfanView will handle the WMF files, and if Ghostscript is installed, the EPS files. CorelDRAW! will also handle both.

In ART/SYLEA:

I can't open any of the files; the JPG is a misnamed ART file, the WMF file seems to have an invalid header, I don't have either CorelDRAW! or Ghostscript on the computer I was using, and I don't have any information on what will open a DSC file.


Jeff Zeitlin, Editor
Freelance Traveller
    The Electronic Fan-Supported Traveller® Resource xxxxxx@freelancetraveller.com http://www.freelancetraveller.com
--
WPG files will also open in Inkscape.

The WMF file in the case of the Sylea file is actually compressed with BINHEX, you have to decode it first before it will open.

Boy oh boy, I could waste a mountain of time on this!

Brett.
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