Re: Public Domain in Russia
David Starner <dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org> writes:
> Copyright agreement is provided in first line of the dictionary file:
> (C) V.K.Mueller English-Russian Dictionary, 7 Edition;
> "State Publishing House of Foreign and National Dictionaries" Moscow 1961;
> Free Electronic Version by S.Starostin 1996 starling.rinet.ru/download/dict.exe;
> Electronic Version by E.S.Cymbalyuk 1999 under GNU GPL, ver. 1.2, see latest version on www.chat.ru/~mueller_dic or www.geocities.com/mueller_dic
>
> You may download original DOS-version of the Mueller dictionary (7
> Edition) for DOS from www-page of Sergei Starostin. According to the
> extracurial compromise between company "ABBYY" and publishing house
> "Russky Yazyk", publishing house "Russky Yazyk" has copyrights on
> editions of Mueller dictionary published after 1961 only. Thus the
> content of Mueller dictionary published before 1961 is in public
> domain. S.Starostin, as the author of the first electronic version
> of Mueller dictionary, kindly allowed me to use his code one for any
> purpose. You can use my electronic version of Mueller dictionary
> under GNU GPL.
>
> The Russian Scientific-Technical Center "Informregistr" has
> registered the Electronic Version of Mueller Dictionary (7 Edition)
> on February 29, 2000. The number of State registration is
> 0320000030.
> ------------------------------
>
> This should be in the copyright file, right? More worrysome to me,
> though, is why is this in the public domain? Under Berne convention
> copyright law, Mueller or ABBYY or Russky Yazyk would still have
> copyright, unless it was deliberately given up. Does the registry
> number tell us anything about the copyright status?
OK, I revised the license and I think it's ok. Mr. Cymbalyuk (upstream
author) contacted lawyers and they told that it is ok. Secondly, AFAIR
Berne convention was signed by Russia after 1961, and laws in russia
have no back reaction.
On the bug you filed (#95810): My package includes 7th edition of
Mueller's dictionary, but the license you mentioned is about 24th
edition. So I'm going to close this bug.
--
Peter Novodvorsky http://www.altlinux.ru/ AltLinux Team, Russia
Debian.Org http://debian.org/~nidd
Debian --- no need to wait for tomorrow.
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