Documentation from the Public Domain Calculators Meeting

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Rufus Pollock

Last week we had a meeting about building a set of Public Domain Calculators for countries across Europe (which we blogged about earlier this month). The public domain calculators will help to determine whether or not a given work is in copyright in a given jurisdiction.

We started out by reviewing existing work on the calculators. We then put together first drafts of diagrams representing copyright law in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. We also started work on a tutorial to help others getting started in building public domain flow diagrams for other countries. Finally we shot some footage for a micro-short film introducing the project – so watch this space!

Documentation for the event is now available, including:

If you are interested in contributing to a calculator for your country – please contact us directly or join our pd-discuss list and introduce yourself!

The Public Domain Calculators meeting was organised by the Open Knowledge Foundation and the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge as part of Communia, the European policy network on the digital public domain.

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Related posts:

  1. Public Domain Calculators Meeting, 10-11th November 2009
  2. Public Domain Calculators: updates and a new list!
  3. Public Domain Calculators at Europeana
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Public Domain Calculators Meeting, 10-11th November 2009

Posted on October 7, 2009 by Rufus Pollock

Public Domain Calculators

There is often a tendency to talk of ‘the public domain’ and of works falling out of copyright and ‘into the public domain’ – as though there is a single set of works which are out of copyright all over the world. In fact, of course, there are different national laws about the nature and duration of copyright in different types of works – and hence what is in the public domain is different in different countries.

We’re currently coordinating work to build a series of public domain calculators – which will help to determine whether or not a given work is in copyright in a given jurisdiction. At the time of writing we have been in touch with groups and individuals interested in helping to build the calculators in 17 jurisdictions.

In November, the Open Knowledge Foundation in association with the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge are hosting a meeting of European experts on copyright and the digital public domain as part of the Communia project. The purpose of the workshop is to produce materials such as legal flow charts and public domain “algorithms” which will help with the representation of different national copyright laws and the determination of public domain status.

Details of the meeting are as follows:

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Related posts:

  1. Documentation from the Public Domain Calculators Meeting
  2. Public Domain Calculators at Europeana
  3. Public Domain Calculators: updates and a new list!
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New developments on Public Domain Works!

Posted on June 18, 2009 by Rufus Pollock

We have now completed a major load of data into the Public Domain Works database:

There are now 125318 persons, 12840 items and 299141 works in the
database. The data we have there comes primarily from two sources:
people and book data from Philip Harper’s NGCOBA and recordings data from the online discographies provided by KCL’s CHARM project.

We also have a load more sound recordings data (~ 600k items) almost
ready to go courtesy of Edward Betts and the Open Library. (And we are yet to even get started on the BBC GRAMS data …).

Also work on the public domain calculators is still ticking over. Gisle Hannemyr recently put together a first draft of a copyright flowchart for Norway.

Join the pd-discuss list to get involved!

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Related posts:

  1. Public Domain Works Database Project
  2. Which works fall into the public domain in 2010?
  3. Public Domain Works + The Open Library
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Database Back Up

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Rufus Pollock

Unfortunately due to upgrades of the software on the server the Public Domain Works DB has been down for several months. Now, thanks to recent coding efforts it is back up with some early (1900s) data from musicbrainz. Check it out at:

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Public Domain Calculators

Posted on November 20, 2007 by Rufus Pollock

As followers of the mailing list will know we are now planning to join forces with Creative Commons on the Internet Archive’s Open Library project. Our first step is to develop ‘public domain calculators’ for the different jurisdictions across Europe. Here a calculator is just an algorithm for determining whether a given work is Public Domain. Initially this algorithm can just be in the form of flow-chart, as exemplified by this chart for Canada, but eventually it should end up as code like this.

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Alpha launch of Public Domain Works

Posted on August 31, 2007 by mhholloway

Public Domain Works advises users on the copyright status of a particular track to encourage creators and entrepreneurs to build on cultural history.

Let’s say you want to use, sample or reissue a particular track, whether its Elvis, Elgar or Elmore Judd. Reusing even a fraction of a copyright-protected track (without the express permission of the rightsholder) leaves you liable for copyright infringement. At the very least, rights holders can restrain distribution of further copies of the infringing work, or they could sue you for damages.

So before reusing tracks in your documentary or mixtape, its best to be aware of the copyright status of the different works embodied in your chosen track. If the track is public domain then you are free to reuse as you jolly well like – without asking permission from anyone. If its protected, then you should identify the rights holder and ask permission before you reuse.

The tool is only at the alpha stage so far, which means it needs a lot of work before its full launch. The dataset (i.e. tracks which users can query) is limited, the supporting literature is scarce and its largely untested. We are however very excited to improve the tool in collaboration with users, so please leave comments on the blog, email us with bugs and get in touch via the Participate page if you want to get more involved.

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Related posts:

  1. Cornell University Library keeps reproductions of public domain works in the public domain
  2. Public Domain Works + The Open Library
  3. Which works fall into the public domain in 2010?
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Public Domain Composers

Posted on June 10, 2007 by Rufus Pollock

To follow up our previous post on the statistics we’d been mining from the composer data donated to use by Phillip Harper herewith is a list of the public domain composers (i.e. composers whose works are now in the public domain as they died more than 70 years ago):

DEATH DATE, NAME
1460-9-20 , Gilles BINCHOIS
1502      , William CORNYSH
1547-1-28 , HENRY
1556-6-10 , Martin SOHR / SORE (ps: Martin AGRICOLA)
1566      , Robert CARVER
1585      , Thomas TALLIS
1611      , Tomas Luis de VICTORIA
1643-11-29, Claudio MONTEVERDI
1644      , Robert RAMSEY
1660      , Johannes PRAETORIUS
1674      , Giacomo CARISSIMI
1687-3-22 , Jean Baptiste (de) LULLY / Giovanni Battista LULLI
1695-11-21, Henry PURCELL
1707-5-9  , Dietrich BUXTEHUDE
1733-5    , Barton BOOTH
1748-11-25, Isaac WATTS
1750      , Tomaso ALBINONI
1750-7-28 , Johann Sebastian BACH
1755      , Gallus ZEILER
1759-4-14 , Georg Friederich HANDEL
1760-5-9  , Nicolaus Ludwig von ZINZENDORF
1764-9-12 , Jean-Philippe RAMEAU
1765      , Johan Joachim AGRELL
1767-6-25 , Georg Philipp TELEMANN
1770      , Charles AVISON
1773      , Charles JENNENS
1779      , Hinrich Philip JOHNSEN
1779-11-13, Johann/Jean ADAM
1787      , Karl/Carl/Charles Friedrich/Frederick ABEL
1787-11-15, Christoph Willibald GLUCK
1788-12-14, Carl Philipp Emanuel BACH
c1790     , Francesco ZAPPA
1791-12-5 , Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART
1800-5-22 , Samuel PEGGE
1809-5-31 , Franz Joseph HAYDN
1813-9-24 , Andre Ernest Modeste GRE''TRY
1822-6-25 , Ernst Theodor Amadeus(ne Wilhelm) HOFFMANN
1826-6-5  , Carl (Maria Friedrich Ernest) von WEBER
1827-3-26 , Ludwig (Johann) van BEETHOVEN
1828-11-19, Franz Peter SCHUBERT
1832-2-15 , H Otto Konrad ZINK
1832-3-13 , Friedrich KUHLAU
1835-9-23 , Vincenzo BELLINI
1836      , Christian Ignatius LATROBE
1836      , Karl Heinrich ZOLLNER / ZOELLNER
1837      , Samuel WESLEY
1838-8-17 , Emmanuel CONEGLIANO (ps: Lorenzo da PONTE)
1840      , Pieter TADEMA
1846      , John Henry BROMWICH
1847-11-4 , (Jakob Ludwig) Felix MENDELSSOHN (BARTHOLDY)
1847-7-4  , Frederick LINGARD
1848-4-8  , (Jean-)Louis ADAM
1848-4-8  , Domenico Gaetano Maria DONIZETTI
1848-8-14 , Sarah Fuller (nee)Flower ADAMS (&ps: [Sarah FLOWER]; [S Y])
1849-10-17, Frederic/Pryderyk Francois/Franciszek CHOPIN
c1852     , Richard BAINES
1853-10-29, Pierre Joseph Guillaume ZIMMERMANN / ZIMMERMAN
1856      , Adolphe ADAM
1856-7-29 , Robert (Alexander) SCHUMANN
1857-11-7 , Heinrich Christoph ZEUNER (ps: Charles ZEUNER)
1858-4    , Hicks
1858-9-15 , Thomas ADAMS
1860-4-30 , John ADCOCK
1864-5-2  , Yaakov Liebmann BEER (ps: Giacomo MEYERBEER)
1868      , William Batchelder BRADBURY
1868-11-13, Gioacchino Antonio ROSSINI
1869-12-18, Louis Moreau GOTTSCHALK
1869-3-8  , (Louis) Hector BERLIOZ
1870      , Alfred NICHOLSON
1870-4-8  , Charles-Auguste de BERIOT
1875-6-3  , Alexandre-Cesar-Leopold BIZET (ps: Georges BIZET)
1880-10-4 , Jacques(=Jacob Eberst) OFFENBACH
1881-3-28 , Modest (Petrovich) MUSSORGSKY
1881-6-6  , Henry VIEUXTEMPS
1882-7    , John ZUNDEL
1883-2-13 , (Wilhelm) Richard WAGNER
1886-7-31 , Franz LISZT
1887      , Henry DENNIS
1887      , George Alexander MACFARREN
1887-2-27 , Alexander BORODIN
1888      , Charles (Henri) Valentin ALKAN
1889-4-6  , Frederick Arthur Gore OUSELEY
1890-11-8 , Cesar FRANCK
1890-12-21, Niels Wilhelm GADE
1890-6-30 , Samuel Parkman TUCKERMAN
1891-1-8  , Frederik PACIUS
1891-8-5  , Henri LITOLFF
1892      , Josephine POLLARD
1892-10-24, Robert FRANZ
1892-3-21 , Arthur Goring THOMAS
1892-8-15 , Baron
1893-10-18, Charles (Francois) GOUNOD
1893-10-25, Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY
1893-11-20, George Alexander OSBORNE
1893-6-15 , John ELLERTON
1893-7-16 , Antonio GHISLANZONI
1893-7-30 , Mario UCHARD
1893-8-22 , Ernst August Karl Johannes Leopold Alexander Eduard
1893-8-31 , William George CUSINS
1896-5-20 , Clara SCHUMANN
1897      , Max MARETZEK
1900      , Henry TWELLS
1900-11-22, Arthur Seymour SULLIVAN
1900-12-7 , Henry RUSSELL
1901      , William ALLEN
1901-1-27 , Giuseppe VERDI
1901-1-29 , Hugh Reginald HAWEIS
1901-3-8  , Peter BENOIT
1903      , Luigi ARDITI
1904-5-1  , Antonin Leopold DVORA''K
1905-11-11, David BRAHAM
1906      , Anton Stepanovich ARENSKII
1908      , Robert Steele AMBROSE
1908-1-14 , Holger (Henrik Herholdt) DRACHMANN
1908-12-24, Francois Auguste GEVAERT
1908-6-21 , Nikolai Andreyevich RIMSKY-KORSAKOFF
1911-5-18 , Gustav MAHLER
1911-5-29 , William Schwenck GILBERT
1912-5-26 , Jan BLOCHX
1912-8-13 , Jules Emile Frederic MASSENET
1915-4-27 , Alexander (Nikolaievich) SCRIABIN
1915-5-6  , Theodore Chickering WILLIAMS
1916-11-13, Frederick Septimus KELLY
1916-12-26, Edward Henry THORNE
1916-8-5  , George (Sainton Kaye) BUTTERWORTH
1917      , Alfred Henry VINE
1917-1-29 , Henry SAINT-GEORGE
1917-12-30, R W LIDDLE
1917-4-1  , Scott JOPLIN
1917-7-29 , Herbert Cayley WEBSTER
1918      , Cecil COLES
1918      , Quinito VALVERDE
1918-1-30 , Daniel DE LANGE
1918-10   , (Alexandre) Charles LECOCQ
1918-10-7 , Hubert Hastings PARRY
1918-12-31, Rossiter Worthington RAYMOND
1918-3-25 , Claude (Achille) DEBUSSY
1918-9-19 , Liza LEHMANN
1919-10-16, Charles Harford LLOYD
1919-12-18, Horatio (William) PARKER
1919-6-2  , Ernest A C FORD
1919-8-9  , Ruggiero LEONCAVALLO
1920-1-16 , (Henry Louis) Reginald DE KOVEN
1920-2-1  , William Alexander Houston COLLISSON
1920-2-9  , John Varley ROBERTS
1920-4-7  , Caroline Alice ROBERTS
1920-6-28 , Edmonstoune DUNCAN
1921      , Natalie CURTIS
1921      , Bernard DE LISLE
1921-12-16, (Charles) Camille SAINT-SAE"NS
1921-12-27, Julian CLIFFORD
1921-2-2  , Luigi MANCINELLI
1921-3-2  , John Edward VERNHAM
1921-5-27 , Haydn KEETON
1921-9-27 , Engelbert HUMPERDINCK
1922-11-6 , William BAINES
1922-2-26 , Luigi DENZA
1923-10-22, Oliver (Arthur) KING
1923-3-20 , Henry Edward KREHBIEL
1924-11-29, Giacomo (Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria) PUCCINI
1924-2-15 , Lionel MONCKTON
1924-2-17 , Oskar MERIKANTO
1924-3-29 , Charles Villiers STANFORD
1924-4-5  , Rosalind ELLICOTT
1924-6-11 , Theodore DUBOIS
1924-6-23 , Cecil James SHARP
1925      , Louis FALK
1925-11-14, Agnes Marie ZIMMERMANN
1925-4-1  , Francis William DAVENPORT
1926-3-31 , Robert Finnie McEWEN
1927      , Jules JORDAN
1927-1-16 , Harvey LOHR
1927-10-28, Joseph Eaton FANING
1927-5-28 , Charles MACPHERSON
1927-7-30 , Roland ROGERS
1928-10-8 , Egbert Foster HORNER
1928-12-2 , Henry Davan WETTON
1928-2-18 , Thomas Henry COLLINSON
1928-2-2  , Frederick ILIFFE
1928-3-1  , (Alfred) Herbert BREWER
1928-3-27 , Leslie STUART
1928-4-6  , Friedrich Wilhelm RHODE
1928-8-12 , Leos JANACEK
1928-9-12 , Howard TALBOT
1929      , Ouide MUSIN
1929-10-30, Alfred Henry MILES
1929-11-26, Comm
1929-12-3 , (Julia) Zitella COCKE
1929-2    , Milton WELLING
1929-2-24 , Andre (Charles Prosper) MESSAGER
1929-3-29 , Joseph Cox BRIDGE
1929-4-2  , Louis (Francis) VUILLEMIN
1929-7-31 , Charles Albert Edwin HARRISS
1929-9-7  , Fred/Frederic/Frederick Edward WEATHERLY
1930      , Henry BURTON
1930      , Charles Kassell HARRIS
1930      , Jean HURE
1930-1-29 , Emilie Paulina Venceslava KITTLOVA / KITTL / KITTEL
1930-11-14, Lt-Col
1930-11-4 , William Gurney ROTHERY
1930-2-2  , Willie Lewis LUTTMAN
1930-7-15 , Leopold AUER
1930-8-20 , George John BENNETT
1931-10-3 , Carl NIELSEN
1931-11-1 , William SHAKESPEARE
1931-11-16, Alfred E AARONS
1931-4-9  , Frederick Joseph William CROWE
1931-5-12 , Eugene YSAYE
1931-7-23 , William WOLSTENHOLME
1931-8    , Cesar THOMSON
1931-8-22 , Joseph TABRAR
1931-9-8  , Jimmy(=James Mackey) GLOVER
1932-11-14, Charles Hylton STEWART
1932-11-23, Percy PITT
1932-12-1 , Amadeo VIVES
1932-12-9 , (John) Arthur MEALE
1932-3-3  , Eugen d'ALBERT
1932-3-6  , John Philip SOUSA
1932-7-10 , Col
1932-7-28 , Walter William HEDGCOCK
1932-8    , Jean NOUGUES
1932-8-21 , Frederick CORDER
1932-9-26 , Pierre DEGEYTER
1933      , Louis/Luigi ABBIATE
1933-10-19, James Nathaniel David Russell DAY
1933-2-20 , William PRENDERGAST
1933-4-25 , Francesco BERGER
1933-5-17 , Alfred KALISCH
1934      , Frederick (Albert Theodore) DELIUS
1934      , Dario NICCODEMI
1934-1-2  , Robert Coningsby CLARKE
1934-10-16, Charles Lovell Fletcher BOUGHEY
1934-2-23 , Edward (William) ELGAR
1934-3-3  , Norman O'NEILL
1934-5-25 , Gustav (Theodore von) HOLST
1934-6-10 , Frederick DELINS
1934-6-15 , (Louis Charles Bonaventure) Alfred BRUNEAU
1934-7-10 , Ada Florence ROWBOTHAM
1934-9-10 , George HENSCHEL
1934-9-24 , Edwin Henry LEMARE
1935-1-12 , William Edward WHITEHOUSE
1935-10-6 , Frederick Hymen COWEN
1935-12-10, William Ernest SANDERSON
1935-12-24, Alban (Maria Johannes) BERG
1935-3-17 , Mary CARMICHAEL
1935-4-13 , Alfred Jethro SILVER
1935-4-28 , Alexander Campbell MACKENZIE
1935-5-16 , Bernard JOHNSON
1935-7-19 , Philip Napier MILES
1935-8-31 , Frederick St John LACY
1935-9-2  , Isidore DE LARA
1935-9-27 , Alan GRAY
1936      , Harald BJELKE-PETERSEN
1936-1-7  , Helen RHODES
1936-11-11, Edward GERMAN
1936-3-21 , Alexander Konstantinovich GLAZUNOV / GLAZOUNOW
1936-5-18 , Alexander Morvaren MACLEAN
1936-7-6  , Orlando Augustine MANSFIELD
1937      , Maurice ARNOLD
1937      , Sam FRANKO
1937-1-15 , Harold SAMUEL
1937-3-12 , Jeno de HUBAY
1937-3-12 , Charles-Marie WIDOR
1937-3-29 , Karol (Maciej) SZYMANOWSKI
1937-4-10 , Algernon Bennet Langton ASHTON
1937-4-9  , Arthur (William) FOOTE
1937-4-9  , (William) Henry HADOW
1937-5-2  , Arthur SOMERVELL
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Public understanding of the 'public domain'

Posted on April 20, 2007 by mhholloway

Last Tuesday 17th April i went to my first Own-It event – ‘Dead or Alive: Whose art work is up for grabs?’ – and was very happy to see a roomful of artists and creative types discussing the ins and outs of copyright law.
I was however kinda surprised to hear their IP-expert solicitor use the phrase ‘public domain’ to indicate something entirely different to our use. He did not use the phrase to indicate an intellectual creation free from legal restraint but rather to indicate the inverse of private, as in publicly available works; works that have been published. Then an audience member asked about the rights-status of works in the ‘public domain’, and the expert answered with reference to published works, suggesting he did not associate the term with freedoms.
Seems the legal profession do not understand the term ‘public domain’ in the same way our community does, something which had not occurred to me. Guess i figured it was a recognised legal concept, whereas its more an emerging notion. Should we then revise our project name before going public?

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Some Statistics

Posted on March 25, 2007 by Rufus Pollock

We’ve been busy hacking away and as a result we now have some rough statistics:

  1. Composers whose works are out of copyright. Of the 1083 composers listed in the data kindly donated to us by Philip Harper we estimate that, as of January 1st 2007:
    • Out of Copyright: 263
    • In Copyright: 762
    • Status Unknown: 58
  2. Musicbrainz coverage. Basic querying of musicbrainz indicates that they have the following number of releases per year:
    • 106 releases between 1957 -1958,
    • 103 releases between 56-57
    • 59 releases between 55-56
    • 32 release between 54-55
    • 23 for 53-54
    • 15 for 52-53
    • 14 for 51-52
    • 9 for 50-51
    • 7 for 49-50
    • 35 for 1939 to 1949
    • 36 for 1919 to 1939
    • 7 for 1800 to 1919

Combining these together just shows what a need there is to have a project like this: there are lots of composers whose works are out of copyright but very few of the out-of-copyright recordings of their works are available.

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PD Burn receives BBC Phonograms data

Posted on January 9, 2007 by mhholloway

The kindly people at BBC Archives have supplied our project with 1.8 gigs (over 1,000,000 items) of data, which includes, in particular, listing of antique recordings. The exact rights status of this data has yet to be determined, so unfortunately for now we can only analyze its contents. Before this analysis, we’ll need to decode its contents via a manual, which decodes the rather obscure short-hand employed at Auntie back when the data was stored…

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