Sujet sur Discussion utilisateur:Hsarrazin

Hi, can you help me to understand how French wartime copyright extensions work?

I have some doubts concerning Romain Rolland and Mahatma Gandhi. According to frwiki the text was first published in 1923 and according to notes at this page for texts published before 1.1.1948 copyright is extended for 8 years and 120 days. So I assume, this particular text was copyrighted 58 years and 120 days pma (since 1.1.1945) according to law that was applicable at the URAA date (1.1.1996). So it was still copyrighted in France at the URAA date. Am I right?

My question is related to this book and because we care for URAA in pl.ws. So the US copyright status of the French edition is important to us. (I assume it will be PD in US in a month, but is it not PD now.)

I was also suggested that you can help me to resolve the French copyright status of File:Ossendowski - Sous le fouet du Simoun.djvu. The French edition date (1928) is a guess (definitely not 18xx as the library catalogue says). Polish edition was 1926, English 1927. Unfortunately, I can find nothing about Robert Renard, the French translator of all Ossendowski's works. Can you halp me with this? Can the book be PD? If not, when can it be suitable for fr.ws? This book should be PD in US not later than in 2024. Ankry (d) 3 décembre 2018 à 13:22 (UTC)

Hello Ankry.

War extensions (8+120) were replaced by the death+70 in july 1995, and that applied to all authors for whom the war prorogations were not extinct on 1995-july-1st. Thus, Romain Rolland was under a death+70 protection law. He is now fully "Public Domain" in France, and has been for almost 2 years now, since the death+70 years delay now is complete.

For URAA application (US law), I will not be able to help you. I still cannot understand how US can enforce copyright law on artists and works that are PD in their own country. Even more, I will not be able to tell you about Polish editions of French books :/

For Ossendowski_-_Sous_le_fouet_du_Simoun, I can confirm that it's been published in 1928, and we have no info about the translator's death date, except that his last translation work was in 1936. (FRBNF cb31042660b)

His name is very common, and thus it is almost impossible to search genealogic databases to find the info. Unfortunately, translators were considered by publishers as a low-value workforce, and authors right for translation was not a preoccupation at the time, so, no info about translators was kept when they were not writers by themselves...

Strictly speaking, this book should not be added to wikisource considering we have no info about the translator's death date : He may have died in WW2, or not... he could still have been alive in 1980... So, yes the book could be public domain... but we have absolutely no way to tell :(

Thank you for the explanation.

Your information that France had 70 pma copyright on 1.1.1996 is important: this means that enwiki info concerning URAA and French works (suggesting that on 1.1.1996 70 pma applied only to music compositions and not to literary works) is incorrect (see above; enwiki link fixed already). Could you, please, provide me a link to full text of the French Copyright law version valid in 1996 (may be in French if English is not available)? The misleading enwiki information should be fixed.

Concerning PD & Copyright in variuos countries: due to Berne Convention this is independent of the country of origin. So Saint-Exupéry's works are already PD in most EU countries (excluding France, Spain and Italy) (however, there's no Polish PD translation of any of them, yet). L'Aviateur will be PD in US in 2022 (and will be suitable to oldwikisource then). And all Rolland's works are still copyrighted in Spain (80 pma) and Mexico (100(!) pma). It is hard to fit all possible legal systems, so we must choose what applies to a specyfic project.

Do I correctly understand your words, that French translations of Ossendowski works can never go to fr.ws, and oldwikisource may be the only suitable place for them?
In pl.ws we apply PD assumption for works of authors with unknown death date (170 since birth date, or 150 since first publication date). They do not warrant PD in 100%, but are resonable estimations in most cases (people who died forgotten are unlikely to live over 100; and generally authors are unlikely to publish before being 20 y.o.).

Sorry, my wrong. The EU law about 70 years came into application in 1995, but was only transposed in France by a march 1997 law. I was a little too quick writing my answer ^^ - the point was mostly that Rolland was under the death+70 years law, not the 50+war prorogations...

My answer concerning Ossendowski translation by Renard was that it is much to early to safely consider it is PD. Imagining Renard was 20 when he wrote it, and died 100 (in 2008), it won't be safe before another 60 years (if law does not change). Of course, it's and extreme case calculation... but we don't know his birth date either, and his first published translation was in 1927 ^^

AFAIK, Commons systematically erases those works. 150 since firts publication seems safe enough for me (90 is not)... but I'l be dead in 60 more years :D

For URAA, the calculation is 1995 - 58 = 1937. So any author who died before that date, or any anonymous work published before 1937 is free of URAA. Regards,

hmm. Thanks @Yann.

Does it mean a contrario that any work published after 1937, or author who died after 1937 falls under URAA ? until when ?

It seems to me that any work of an author who died in 1937 or later potentially falls under URAA However works published before 1923 by any author are already PD in US.

URAA applies if the work was published initially in France, not republished in US during the month following the initial publication, and the work's copyright was not registered in US Copyright Office or registered and not renewed after 28 years. And the URAA-related copyright expires 95 years after the publication date. So, in a month everything published in 1923 will also be PD in US.

Pre-1978 US copyright law was based on publication date and not on author's death date. Pma 70 applies in US to newer works only, that will be PD in many years. Ankry (d) 4 décembre 2018 à 14:21 (UTC)

Yes, right. My answer was incomplete.