Talk:World Digital Library

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A news item involving World Digital Library was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the In the news section on 21 April 2009.

Wikipedia

"Free of charge"

While the user does not have to pay to access materials on the WDL, they are not copyright free. The Legal Notice section says the following: Content found on the WDL Web site is contributed by WDL partners. Copyright questions about partner content should be directed to that partner. When publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in a WDL partner's collections, the researcher has the obligation to determine and satisfy domestic and international copyright law or other use restrictions.

So I think a section on licensing should be included - I'll add one. – ukexpat (talk) 13:14, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How does that determine that they are not copyright free? To me it looks as though they are simply giving good advice and covering their own backs in the event something is still under international copyright. The volumes and journals look far too old to remain under any copyright law I know of. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 14:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, certainly there are different claims made about copyright, but Bridgeman v. Corel (and other legal decisions following it, and other similar one throughout the world) are pretty clear that very old items are clearly in the public domain even if they are scanned in and presented online. In fact, the claim the site uses doesn't say that everything is copyrighted by the institutions that provided access, just that copyright should be researched. A minimal amount of research shows quite uncontroversially that a good chunk of the holdings are clearly public domain based solely upon age. Much of it was created before there even existed any copyright law to protect it, and a lot of the later content is still too old to be covered by any copyright law in the world. DreamGuy (talk) 15:23, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, I was merely pointing out the terms on the wesbite and, ex abundante cautela, that not all content on the WDL may be PD or otherwise freely available for use elsewhere. I should have said "...they may not be copyright free" in my comment above. – ukexpat (talk) 15:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, certainly some of it wouldn't be freely usable, but if the wording suggests that most or none of it is then it went way too far to the other side, as a lot of it clearly is PD. DreamGuy (talk) 19:24, 22 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed your OR claim. Either we mention licensing without OR or we don't mention at all. Engaging in OR because we think the World Digital Library source is confusing or misleading is not acceptable. Nil Einne (talk) 03:13, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]