User talk:Billinghurst/Archives/2010/April

Old song lyrics? Copyright status?
Hi. :) I'm looking for somebody who can help me determine the copyright status of a couple of old (but, sadly, not pre-1923 old) song lyrics. These aren't on Wikisource, but here; however, my experience of Wikisource admins has generally suggested to me that you have arcane knowledge and magical resources I lack. :) User:Anonymous Dissident suggested you might be able to help me. One of the songs in question appears to have been written in a Nazi concentration camp and was registered in the US at one point. The other may have been written by a British soldier and was first published in Madrid by the Commissariat of War in 1938. I haven't been able to find any indication that it was ever registered in the US. If you can help with these, I'd be happy to give you more details. If not, could you by any chance recommend somebody who might? I'd hate to lose the lyrics unnecessarily! --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:46, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * AD praises too much. I would suggest that you put the details here, and we will get user Prosfilaes to give us an accurate perspective from a US perspective, and better resource user. In all these cases, the more specific the data, the more that we can tie down information. For generic information, we can only give generic response. billinghurst  sDrewth  10:59, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * All right, thanks. I just wanted to be sure that you were interested before cluttering you up with the specifics. :) The full conversation is at this talk page.
 * Peat Bog Soldiers is evidently a song written by prisoners in a Nazi labor camp in Germany. It seems some version of the song (do not know which) was registered in 1944, according to . It is subsequently included on a recording 1961 with no copyright information (at least on the Smithsonian reissue of same), and some versions of the lyrics are printed in a 1966 Bantam Book, The Ballad of America by John Anthony Scott, with no copyright information (while the book does provide copyright information for some other lyrics).
 * Jarama Valley (song); I didn't see any sign of copyright registration, but I don't really know where to look. Roger describes the history of that one very well and succinctly:
 * "Following up on Peat Bog Soldiers, itt occurs to me that there may be copyright queries on Jarama Valley (song) too. This again is a song which developed on the frontlines (in 1937-39) and in the political undergound in Germany (1939-144) and Spain (1939 til the death of Francisco Franco) when such songs were banned by the Nazis and the Spanish Government respectively. The original 'early' English version was first published in The Book of the XV International Brigade, (p. 97) issued by the Commissariat of War, in Madrid in 1938, and republished in facsimile by Frank Graham in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1975. It is attributed to Alex McDade (who died in 6 July 1937) but neither edition asserts copyright. The 'reunion' version heavily derives from the 'early' version and is therefore not protected by its own copyright (even if intectual property rights were asserted, which appears not to be the case). The 'three verse' version seems to be a composite of the 'early' and 'reunion' versions, with British Battalion replaced by Lincoln Battalion. Copyright is not asserted on either (i) the labels or sleevenotes for the 1961 Folkways recording of the 'reunion' version or (ii) the 1999 re-release by Smithsonian Folkways (Vol. 1).  Roger Davies  talk 11:11, 9 March 2010 (UTC)"
 * Any input or Prosfilaes can provide would be much appreciated. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi. I just wanted to stop by and see if you or Prosfilaes had any thoughts on this. :) --Moonriddengirl (talk) 10:54, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry that this is evidently difficult. :/ Do you know of anyone else I might ask? This one is hanging on my mental to-do list, and even if nobody can definitively answer some decision is going to have to be made, since it's not a matter of "can we add the content?" but "can we keep the content?" --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:29, 30 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Apologies, have had life reality checks. The ready reference that I use is http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm though this is getting into the non-standard, as you recognised. So here are my best guesses.
 * Peat Bog Soldiers - A few issues, 1) the original language, 2) the translation, will both have copyright, 3) Publication. To me it would seem that unless the works were by authors who died before 1940 then they would be under copyright for the German language versions, and that would make the English versions under different copyrights and who did the translations. Erring to the conservative side, it is possible that they are legally under some form of copyright, though I wouldn't have thought that these would have been pursued due to confirmation of the authorship and publication of the works.
 * Jarama Valley. Written by a Brit who died in 1937 (so British copyright probably terminated in 1987 (50 years); though most likely need to consider Spanish copyright; though one never even knows whether the original publication was made legally, or whether it matters. So if a foreign copyright exists in 1996 then US law would seem to consider this is under copyright (Works First Published Outside the U.S. by Foreign Nationals or U.S. Citizens -> 1923 through 1977 ->  Solely published abroad, without compliance with US formalities or republication in the US, and not in the public domain in its home country as of 1 January 1996)and I think it would be until 2032. If out of copyright in 1996 then one can demonstrate that it is the public domain.   Reality: it wouldn't seem that copyright protection is being pursued and there are numerous examples of such, and one wonders what the US courts would do, I certainly don't know that case law.
 * How hard do you want to chase this down? There are some (busy) legal types around who may be able to express a legal opinion if there is an absolute necessity. To me it seems that in both cases it would be ignoring the reality that they works are simply out there and no one is claiming copyright, let alone pursuing it. billinghurst  sDrewth  12:24, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much, and I don't know. :) This is an unusual situation. WP:C, of course, tells us to go for the conservative, erring on the side of caution when there's any doubt. But while we're encouraged to "write it ourselves" there, that's obviously not going to be helpful in the case of song lyrics. I appreciate very much your taking the time to look at it, and I was kind of keeping my fingers crossed that you might be able to find a definitive answer so that we wouldn't have to make a judgment call here. (While I do a lot with copyright, I have limited experience in international matters with some age to them.) Because of the scrutiny in this situation, it has the potential to be precedent setting. While I don't think I'd trouble Mike Godwin about it, I might raise the question at WT:C for that reason. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 12:34, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

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James Shaw Willes
This is an automated message from CorenSearchBot. I have performed a web search with the contents of James Shaw Willes, and it appears to include a substantial copy of http://www.libraryireland.com/biography/SirJamesShawWilles.php. For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or printed material; such additions will be deleted. You may use external websites as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences. See our copyright policy for further details. (If you own the copyright to the previously published content and wish to donate it, see Donating copyrighted materials for the procedure.)

This message was placed automatically, and it is possible that the bot is confused and found similarity where none actually exists. If that is the case, you can remove the tag from the article and it would be appreciated if you could drop a note on the maintainer's talk page. CorenSearchBot (talk) 11:40, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Article text added to Wikisource from original text, which obviously has copied the same out of copyright text. This is appropriately referenced. billinghurst  sDrewth  11:48, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

Matthew Young (bishop)
Hi, Just a reminder that although the biogs in the Compendium of Irish Biography don't need to specify the Irish connection explicitly, in Wikipedia it's helpful and conventional to put a geographical context into the lead sentence - as I've done for this article, for the benefit of those who don't recognise Clonfert as Irish. Thanks. PamD (talk) 06:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

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the text from s:Despenser, Henry, le (DNB00)
Hi, I sorted out the article in DNB and I am now working on expanding the artcle on Henry using the DNB and other sources. I'll add the reference in as requested. Amitchell125 (talk) 06:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)