Does UK copyright apply to AUS sourced material?

[ShellShock]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think you'll find, though, that we already have pretty much all of Orwell's work in nicely-formatted versions.

Possibly--but the version of Burmese Days I downloaded used hyphens instead of em-dashes, single quotes instead of opening and closing quotes, and single quotes instead of right apostrophes. Also there are blank lines between paragraphs, which I do not personally like as it wastes precious screen space.

In the Gutenberg source the em-dashes are represented by double hypens, which is easy enough to convert to em-dashes. The single quote marks are more difficult, but I have automated that somewhat so I'm hopeful that quotes are correctly balanced, but I need to proof read first.

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by ShellShock

Possibly--but the version of Burmese Days I downloaded used hyphens instead of em-dashes, single quotes instead of opening and closing quotes, and single quotes instead of right apostrophes. Also there are blank lines between paragraphs, which I do not personally like as it wastes precious screen space.

In the Gutenberg source the em-dashes are represented by double hypens, which is easy enough to convert to em-dashes. The single quote marks are more difficult, but I have automated that somewhat so I'm hopeful that quotes are correctly balanced, but I need to proof read first.

Don't forget that the Gutenberg ideal is to produce a book that is as close a copy of the original as possible - not to change it to a modern version....


Though I wonder what the date of production is on the books you are looking at ?

[ShellShock]

I also notice that instead of italics, ALL CAPS are used; I can't imagine that ALL CAPS was used in the source book. I believe this was an early convention used for Gutenberg, which has since been replaced by underscores.

The Gutenberg text I'm working on seems to have lost information in the transition from paper to plain text:

Opening and closing quotes are converted into single quotes; this applies to both double and single.

Italics become ALL CAPS. Thus it is no longer possible to tell which characters, if any, were capitalised in the original.

There is no distinction between apostrophes and other quote characters.

So what I am trying to do is to restore this lost information, to make a more enjoyable reading experience on my Reader (as opposed to Gutenberg which is trying to preserve texts for posterity, so is more concerned to use a format--text--that is as portable and universal as possible).

[jcf]

Hi,

This is my first post even though I've been lurking around this wonderful forum for a few weeks now.

I live in Canada. Knowing that MR's servers are in Canada, I'm assuming that I can download anything from this site without worrying about copyright violations.

But what happens when I travel to a country with different copyright rules? For example, I travel a lot to the US and of course I bring my PRS-505 with me. Am I violating copyright laws by carrying eBooks that may not yet be public domain in the US but are already PD in Canada?

Thanks.

-jcf

[HarryT]

I don't believe so. You'd only be violating copyright by downloading while you were in the US. This is, however, such a trivial issue that I honestly wouldn't worry about it.

[Jellby]

Why would downloading from the UK (or US) be different from buying a physical book (public domain in Canada) from a Canadian book store while being in the UK?

[HarryT]

Because legally, when you buy a physical book, the transaction takes place at the location of the bookstore, whereas when you download, it's your location that matters. That's why eBook stores impose "geographical restrictions" on who can buy certain books, but physical bookstores don't.

[Jellby]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Because legally, when you buy a physical book, the transaction takes place at the location of the bookstore, whereas when you download, it's your location that matters. That's why eBook stores impose "geographical restrictions" on who can buy certain books, but physical bookstores don't.

Yes, I understand the "legal" thing, I was just discussing it from a "common sense" point of view

Would be legal to have someone download public domain books in Canada and then sending a CD (just charging for the shipping and physical support) to Europe? Then I see some reasons for MobileRead to offer CDs or DVDs with the books it hosts...

[HarryT]

From a practical perspective I completely agree you that the whole thing is a nonsense. I don't know if your cunning plan would be legal or not, I'm afraid .

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Jellby

Would be legal to have someone download public domain books in Canada and then sending a CD (just charging for the shipping and physical support) to Europe? Then I see some reasons for MobileRead to offer CDs or DVDs with the books it hosts...

What an interesting question. I have no idea. For that matter, I'm not sure whether it would be legal to print the books in Canada, and then sell them abroad by mail order.

It certainly wouldn't be legal for someone in the UK to then make more copies of the items in the CD. Say, but copying them to their ebook reader. I think it would be legal to read them 'directly' off the CD on a computer, as I vaguely recall some right to temporary copies.

Copyright certainly does need a refresh, A shame that in the US it's currently being done by class-action instead of by legislation.