When the Publishers Association mention “illegal content” – here’s an example. HT @PublishersAssoc @OpenRightsGroup

If you go to this page at the University of Pennsylvania, you’ll read the following text:

A Celebration of Woman Writers

Married Love, or Love in Marriage
By Marie Carmichael Stopes, Sc.D., Ph. D. (1880-1958)
New York: The Critic And Guide Company, 1918.

In the Unites States of America, [sic]
the 1918 edition of “Married Love” is in the public domain.
Follow this link to read this electronic edition.

In Great Britain and many other countries,
Stopes’ works are still under copyright.
Check the copyright laws of your country to determine what laws apply.

To obtain permission to reproduce Stokes’ works in the United Kingdom
or other countries where copyright applies, contact:

The Galton Institute
19 Northfields Prospect
London SW18 1PE
020 8874 7257
www.galtoninstitute.org.uk

So if you’re in the UK you should not click this link because that would take you to a text which in the UK is still under copyright (albeit that it is 94 years old). You should not do this because you would be accessing illegal content, as explained to me recently by a representative of the Publishers Association.

In the USA, you’re fine – download it, peruse it, consider it, enjoy.

The Publishers Association call the above illegal content because I (in the UK) would not have the necessary license under copyright to download it. They – or rather their representative – spoke about this issue in similar terms to terrorist instruction books, hate speech, and child-abuse imagery.

The latter would be “illegal content”, indeed.

But the book above is actually a 94 year old educational tome by a noted scientist of the time to explain to couples – men and women – that women have these things called menstrual cycles and much of what that entails.

And this also is “illegal content”?

The above is manifestly and clearly an example of the fact that not all content that is made available for download and is copyrighted in one sense is necessarily illegal in another.

Remember that fact. It prove be useful to you.


Update:

screen capture, in case the page should “go away”

Comments

One response to “When the Publishers Association mention “illegal content” – here’s an example. HT @PublishersAssoc @OpenRightsGroup”

  1. Stephen SMoogen

    Sadly that work may no longer be under the public domain in the United States. The recent Supreme Court decision saying that the Congress could bring items back under copyright to meet the Berne convention means that these items may have been pulled back. The case was about Music but since IANAL it seems to cover a lot more.

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