Public Domain Calculators

Background

As part of the Public Domain Works project, we wanted to create an algorithm to determine whether or not a certain work was in the public domain, given certain details such as date of publication, date of death of author, and so on.

Public Domain Works later joined onto the Open Library project, and there were several discussions about creating a set of algorithms for determining public domain status in different jurisdictions.

At the first COMMUNIA workshop the Open Knowledge Foundation suggested members of the network collaborate to create a set of public domain calculators fof different jurisdictions in Europe. The project was also discussed at the first meeting of the EU funded COST A32 project.

Overview

The Public Domain Calculators will be developed in two stages.

  1. The first stage will be to develop copyright flow charts such as this one from Creative Commons Canada, or this one for the US from Bromberg & Sunstein LLP. This work will be undertaken and reviewed by groups of legal experts.

  2. The second stage will be to convert these charts into code. Examples of the algorithms in code form, can be found at Public Domain Works and at the Open Library. This work will be undertaken by the OKF and volunteers.

Calculators

Below are brief summaries of work on public domain calculators in different jurisdictions. If you would like to get involved, please join our okfn-discuss list and introduce yourself!

Argentina

Canada

  • Work is being undertaken by Access Copyright (The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), Creative Commons Canada, Creative Commons Corp. and the Wikimedia Foundation. See this announcement for more details.

Chile

Italy

  • Thomas Margoni at the Università di Trento has expressed an interest in developing a calculator for Italy.

Philippines

Sweden

Switzerland

  • Work is being undertaken by Simon Schlauri of CC Switzerland.

United Kingdom

  • The Open Knowledge Foundation is producing a calculator for the UK.

United States