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 FSI Language Courses Forum : Learning Languages : General Discussion
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gsvaughan
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Quote gsvaughan Replybullet Topic: Copyright status
    Posted: 12 January 2007 at 9:13am
Are the PDF files and .MP3 files here on the site under copyright, i.e. can they be redistributed or modified? I realize that the underlying material is public domain, but there is a copyright notice on the website and that might apply to the PDF and MP3 versions of the material here?

thanks


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onebir
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Quote onebir Replybullet Posted: 14 January 2007 at 11:59am
I can't speak for the site owner, but...

On the home page he states that "These courses were developed by the United States government and are in the public domain."

If you read earlier posts in this forum, you'll also see he (GDFellows) has been very careful to only post material he's sure is in the public domain.

These considerations suggest to me that he thinks the PDFs and MP3s on this site are in the public domain.
 
In addition, under US copyright legislation, derivative works based on government works require
a) substantial original input to be copyrightable, and
b) if copyrighted are supposed to bear a copyright notice indicating which bits these original contributions are.

Since the material on this site satisfies neither a) or b), in the unlikely event that the site owner thought he held copyright in the PDFs and MP3s available here, he'd simply be wrong...
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