[cc-community] Question to the Group about Public Domain

Gisle Hannemyr gisle at ifi.uio.no
Fri Mar 20 21:56:28 EDT 2009


FolkPhilosophy.info wrote:
> Greetings group, and thank you for reading this,
>
> Here is a hypothetical question for you.  Lets say I downloaded this video
> file here:
>
> http://www.archive.org/details/The_Curious_Adventures_of_Mr._Wonderbird
>
> Lets also say I edited it, put my business logos in it, make other
> changes,  burned it to a DVD, and then sold it.
>
> I have questions regarding the above situation:
>
> 1) This is completely within the rights of the license displayed, correct?

First: While it the page at the Internet Archive says:
"Creative Commons license: Public Domain"
I don't think the public domain dedication is a license.

I am not sure what it is, (probably a statement of belief from
somebody that is "identified" as http://www.k-otic.com/ about
the copyright status of the work in question), but it doesn't
look anything like a license to me.

Second: I don't think the entity identified as k-otic.com has
the necessary authority to express an opinion about the
copyright status of this work. I, at least, would not trust
this opinion.

Third: Provided the "Public Domain Dedication" is a valid one (in
this case I am sure it is not), what rights you have follows from what
is implied by something being in the "public domain" in the  jurisdiction
you exercise those rights.  In some jurisdictions, the term "public domain"
has no legal meaning, so nothing by itself follows from the
presence of such a dedication (copyright law may still give you some
rights, of course, when you are dealing with works where economic
rights has expired, but this will not be affacted by the presence or
absence of a CC "public domain dedication" ).

> In fact, what are all the CC licenses that the above scenario would be
> permissable?

You would be allowed to add business logos (but not to remove
credits), to edit (provided you added to the credits a segment
stating that you had edited the work) and to make copies sell the
end result, under the following CC licenses: BY and BY-SA .
With BY-SA, you also must publish your derivative under the
same license

These are real licenses, and provided that they are granted by the
holder of the copyright to the work, you acm be sure you have those
rights.  This is IMHO an important difference between a CC license and
the CC public domain dedication.

> 2) Do I need to cite my source?  If yes, what format do I use?  Is it
> sufficient to only site the Producer, or do I need to be more thorough?

I am not familiar with the concept of "public domain" - it doesn't even
exist in my jurisdiction (Norway).  As I said, whatever rights follows from
is implied by something being in the "public domain" in your jurisdiction.

In Norway, for instance, there are no such thing as "public domain", but
economic rights expires 70 years after the death of the author (moral
rights remain) - so for this particular work, 70 years after the death of
the author (i.e. after 2064) you will be allowed to make copies and sell,
but not edit, or otherwise change the work.  You will not have to cite
the source of the copy you used as master copy.

> 3) How can I trust that archive.org has the proper license for this video?

You can't - as is evident from this example.

This version of the film seems to an adaptation into english of the french
animated film La Bergère et le Ramoneur (The Shepherdess and the
Chimneysweep) by french animator Paul Grimault.  Grimault died
in  1994 and his work will have full copyright protection until 2065
in most Berne signature countries.

-- 
Gisle Hannemyr ( http://hannemyr.com/ )



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