Wikisource:Copyright discussions/Archives/2014

PD-Russia
I can't believe PD-Russia has been outdated for like 7 years, as the rules specified there were retroactively rescinded by Part 4 of the Civil Code, in effect from 2007, which specifies a 70 year protection term.

The current year however is a critical point for the Russian copyright term, since the implementation law 231-FZ specifies that new 70-year term only applies to works that were not in the public domain by January 1, 1993 using a shorter copyright term of 50 years (yes, a different term). And both the current 70-year term and the shorter 50-year term are extended by 4 years if the author fought in the war of 1941-1945 or worked during this period (which in practice applies to any adult that wasn't a convicted criminal).

The combined effect of these provisions means that as of 2014 publiic domain rules amount to the following:
 * 1) Works published before January 1, 1943 (i.e. 71 years ago) - if published anonymously/pseudonymously, or specicific compilation works such as movies, periodicals and complilations published by a state corporation
 * 2) Most importantly, works authored by a person who died before June 22, 1941 - otherwise, the 50-year protection wouldn't expire by January 1, 1993, because everyone who was fighting or working during the Eastern Front war of 1941-1945 is granted an extension of 4 years and so their works were NOT in public domain by 1993 and their copyright will only expire starting on January 1, 2015 (Life + 74 years).
 * 3) The exception is posthumous rehabilitation of those purged during the Great Terror or otherwise unlawfully prosecuted, in which case the protection term is counted from year of rehabilitation + 70 years.

I suggest that someone fluent with US public domain rules should look into combined effects of these regulations.

The important borderline case seems to be Leon Trotsky, who is served under a bizarre set of public domain rules:
 * 1) His works published before October Revolution are in public domain, since Russia does not recognize the laws of the Russian Empire and so it does not offer protection for works published there;
 * 2) English translations of his Russian Empire-era works are in public domain if published by 1923;
 * 3) His works published after November 7, 1917 are protected until 2072, because he was legally rehabilitated in 2001 for being exiled from the Soviet Union in 1928;
 * 4) English translations of his later Russian works are therefore not in the public domain anymore;
 * 5) The above list is probably not complete, as for example it is open to question whether his works published after 1928 should be protected under Russian laws or US laws (though I would submit to opinion that they are protected, because by rehabilitation he regained his Russian citizenship).

Though incomplete, Copyright law of Russia, Copyright law of the Soviet Union and Copyright law of the Russian Federation could be a good start. --DmitryKo (talk) 07:58, 11 December 2014 (UTC)


 * The English Wikisource holds works that are in the public domain in the US. I can't see where the changes would affect us at all; the US only cares about the law in effect in 1996 for the rule of the shorter term type stuff.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:55, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Being retro-active, these laws affect US status of a work. Works PD in 1993 (for authors who died before June 22, 1941) were obviously PD in 1996; Trotsky's post-1917 works, except those published pre-1923, are non-PD retroactively, so were not PD in 1996 retroactively, so not PD-US now, retro-actively. These laws need to be discussed here because the matter is relevant for this site. Hrishikes (talk) 04:52, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No, they don't affect the US status of a work. The copyright might be resurrected in Russia, but that doesn't change anything in the US.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:16, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I think that the discussion was about the template, not any specific works, though there was a suggestion about a review. If the template is wrong, we fix the template, if it is not needed then we delete it. If there any works that are affected by a change of the template, then we should review them. — billinghurst  sDrewth  14:51, 28 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't believe these changes affect the copyright status of any work in the US. If it's about the template, copyright violations is not the right place to go; personally I don't think it worth our time to try and keep country-specific templates around, at least for non-English speaking countries.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:23, 30 December 2014 (UTC)
 * So you are in favour of deletion of the template? And you are suggesting that all foreign language templates should be deleted and we should rely on US framework only? — billinghurst  sDrewth  08:32, 2 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'm in favor of deletion of the template. I think we should have life+n templates, but I don't believe it's productive for us to try and chase every law in the world. We should speak in specifics on the bibliographic details, but not the legal ones where we don't have to.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:39, 18 January 2015 (UTC)
 * IMO currently the main point regarding this template and those changes of Russian copyright laws, is (keeping in mind that this is about URAA restorations):
 * do US copyright laws recognize the retroactivity of those changes made in Russian laws after URAA date 1/1/1996,
 * or the US ignores that retroactivity and regards Russian copyright legislatory as of URAA date 1/1/1996 only?
 * The text of Uruguay Round Agreements Act/Title V does not give any clues for assumption that the US takes in account possible retroactivity of all the changes made in the laws of the other country. IMO it is more likely that the US simply ignores this retroactivity - i.e. as Prosfilaes said above: "The copyright might be resurrected in Russia, but that doesn't change anything in the US."
 * do you have some evidences to prove your point in your statement "Being retro-active, these laws affect US status of a work."? What is that your opinion based on? --Nigmont (talk) 17:33, 24 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Subsequent changes in foreign law do not affect the U.S. copyright status. The URAA was a one-time event, and the only question is whether the works were actually PD on that date per the law in effect at the time.  The U.S. does not use the rule of the shorter term nor the rule of the longer term; for countries which do, then foreign law changes can affect the domestic copyright status.  The U.S. however uses its own copyright terms regardless if it is a foreign or domestic work; this might be shorter or longer than the term in the country of origin since (for works published before 1978) the term is based on date of publication, not date of death.   The URAA was a one-time requirement due to joining the Berne Convention, which forbids loss of copyright due to lack of formalities (such as notice and registration); thus the U.S. was required to restore any such works of foreign Berne signatories.  The Berne Convention allows the use of the rule of the shorter term though, so works PD in the country of origin on that date were not required to be restored, and the U.S. took advantage of that to not restore those works -- thus the impact of foreign law into this process.  But once the URAA date passes, the U.S. copyright status does not change regardless of what happens to the law in the foreign country -- either shortening or lengthening terms will not affect the U.S. terms.  I guess the big reason for the country-specific templates on Wikisource would be to identify the URAA source country and document that works were in fact PD on the URAA date; some countries can have special interactions.  For Russia, they had a 50pma term in 1996, though they had a four-year extension for participants in the Great Patriotic War, which could come into play.  Russia's non-retroactive change to 70pma in 2003 and retroactive change in 2008 has no effect here, and I'm not sure we should be documenting more recent changes other than as a courtesy, since nationals of that country might have more of an interest.  But the law as of the URAA date is more directly relevant to Wikisource and PD status. Carl Lindberg (talk) 08:32, 26 March 2015 (UTC)


 * Carl — thank you very, very, very much for your detailed explanation! The fact that URAA restoration does not recognize the changes of Russian laws made after the URAA date, is excellent for me, really. Just I am engaged in searching some literature written in languages of minor nations of Russia, for publishing that literature on the multilingual Wikisource which does obey US laws only and does not obey the Russian Federation laws. And the facts, that you so kindly explained above, broadens the scope of works free of copyright restrictions according to US laws and so far allowed to be published there.
 * About what to do with template PD-Russia. Of course this question is up to the discretion of community of the English Wikisource, but I would propose to keep this template and continue using it, with some updates having been done to it. I think, the template should be updated in such way that it would reflect those Russian copyright laws only, which were in action on the URAA date 1/1/1996; and all other laws which started their existence later, should be dropped from the template text, including: the laws about extension of term from 50 to 70 years; and the law about use of rehabilitation date for repressed authors. The reasons to do such cut off in the template text are (partly were explained in comments above by other users):
 * The Russian laws which were enacted later than URAA date, are not in use for evaluating the copyright status in Russia as of URAA date, but only this status is taken in account to detect US copyright status;
 * To keep track on any changes of copyright laws of all countries (including Russia) is not an easy task, such job is not productive to be carried on by en-wikisource users; if considering to watch Russian laws only, or laws of some selected countries including Russia, and to ignore all others coutries — there are not any reasons to do so because there are no countries being so privileged to get special care for their copyright laws;
 * Even if any volunteers (e.g. of Russia's nationals) might be found, which would watch all changes being made in Russian laws and update the template timely — even in that case I think that the content of the template should be cut to contain the laws enacted on URAA date only. Because the set of Russian laws on URAA date is more simple, and the succeeding Russian laws have made the things to be more complicated; also a user would be ought to somehow distinguish which laws were applicable on the URAA date and which were not (in the case when all the current Russian laws were included in the template and the user were in need to evaluate real copyright status according to template text). Keeping URAA-date enacted laws only would make much more easy for any en-wikisource user to evaluate, whether some particular work of Russian descent is not falsely tagged by PD-Russia template when it is used on the page of that work.
 * Also, I think, a special note could be added at the end of PD-Russia — a note alike indicating (to a reader of the template text) that real Russian copyright status of the work might be changed from PD, because it is known that some changes have passed to Russian copyright laws after URAA date; and also special proposal may be added — for users of specific interest to Russia's copyright status — to refer to the Russian Civil code in order to exactly determine (if they want) whether this work currently is in PD in Russia or not. --Nigmont (talk) 21:01, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

My apologies to all the community, because I might bring someone to confusion (though I had get confused myself before): recently I found that the sentences about using rehabilitation date as the basis, were already present in the Russian Federation law 09.07.1993 № 5351-1, article 27; I just missed that phrase when I looked through the text (and the circumstance that the point about rehabilitation was not mentioned in the old version of the template also added to my confusion). So it becomes, that the rehabilitation usage in Russian copyright laws was already in force on URAA date (it was 1/1/1996, and that law was applied since 09.07.1993), and should be accounted in the "restoration of copyright" of USSR-published works in the US. --Nigmont (talk) 22:44, 3 June 2015 (UTC)


 * What would be the conclusion about the URAA date of 1/1/1996 and how would apply to Leon Trotsky for example - if his works were PD in Russia on that date, does it mean they would remain PD in the US forever and there would be no retroactive changes, as Carl Lindberg assumes? What happens to the works which were still protected on 1/1/1996 but which entered public domain in Russia before July 2004 - would retroactive extension to 70 years or any posthumous restoration of copyright apply to copyright status of these works in the US, as Nigmont  assumes? DmitryKo (talk) 22:17, 28 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Note that the law №5351-1 of 1993 does contain the provision for an extended copyright term for those authors who fought in or worked during the Great Patriotic War (the Eastern Front of June 22, 1941 - May 9, 1945). Any author who complies with the requirement is awarded an extension of 4 years for a total copyright term of 54 years - and that should be just about any author who was born before May 1929, considering legal working age of 16 years.
 * Which means that most works assumed to enter public domain on January 1, 1993 were actually still protected, because any author who died after June 22, 1941 enjoyed a protection term of 54 years, not 50 years, and such works would be protected until at least January 1, 1996 (January 1 of the year following death + 54 years).
 * As a side effect, this also means that both the federal law 20.07.2004 №72-FZ (a 2004 revision to the law 5351-1) and the Civil Code Part 4 of 2006 retroactively applied the term of 74 years to works by authors who were born before May 1929 and died on or after June 22, 1941, because the 50 (54) year copyright term for their works did not expire by January 1, 1993, as required by the Article 6 of the Russian Federation law 18.12.2006 №231-FZ (the implementation law for the Civil Code Part 4) for the 70 (74) term to be in effect. Only those authors who were born after May 1929 would be protected for life + 70 years, because they were most likely too young to work or fight in the war, but their life expectancy would mean their copyright would not expire until at least 2020s, and most likely well into 2050s to 2080s.
 * As a result, we have a uncertainty gap from January 1996 to July 2004, when works by authors who died in 1941-1950 gradually entered public domain, but then their copyright was restored because of the retroactive provisions in the 2004 revision of the 1993 law and the 2006 Civil Code law which effectively increased protection term to 74 years. DmitryKo (talk) 22:17, 28 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Leon Trotsky is not the best example, as he lived in Mexico at the time of his death and was working on works for American publishers, where the URAA might not apply at all.
 * Russian works that were PD in the US and Russia on 1/1/1996 are still PD in US, no matter what Russian laws changed. Russian works that were under copyright in Russia on 1/1/1996 are under copyright in the US for the same time as a US work; e.g. 95 years from publication for works published between 1923 and 1978.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:00, 28 May 2016 (UTC)
 * This section was archived on a request by: All questions have been answered and the template is up to date as of 2016. —Beleg Tâl (talk) 12:23, 16 March 2017 (UTC)