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mogscout
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Quote mogscout Replybullet Topic: FSI only? What about DLI?
    Posted: 27 January 2007 at 11:31am
 Are there any restrictions on posting DLI material?  BTW, DLI is the Defense Language Institute.  Are we allowed to post government issued material from DLI?  The reason that I ask is that I have tons of DLI Chinese material that include Chinese characters for all the modules.
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onebir
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Quote onebir Replybullet Posted: 27 January 2007 at 12:18pm
There's a bit of discussion about the copyright status of DLI stuff in this thread: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4977

It'd be helpful to know what it says at the front of your books...

Ultimately of course, it's GDFellows call...
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eurasia
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Quote eurasia Replybullet Posted: 18 February 2007 at 7:11am
The posted Mandarin course is DLI so there is already one DLI course available. 
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TheBigZaboon
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Quote TheBigZaboon Replybullet Posted: 20 February 2007 at 5:16pm
eurasia,
 
The FSI course in Mandarin was sold previously in the DLI catalogue, but I think it was produced by a cooperative effort of the US and Canadian governments. I think it really is an FSI product.
 
In one of the introductory sections of one of the texts, there is an explanation of who was involved, and a DLI guy was on one of the committees, but the writers are some of the same FSI instructors you see on other courses like Cantonese. There are also a couple of East Coast academics among the developers, too. Most of DLI's resources are on the West Coast.
 
I think the involvement of academics is what gave the FSI Standard Chinese course a different design than that of the usual FSI courses.
 
Anyway, this is just my opinion.
 
TBZ


Edited by TheBigZaboon - 20 February 2007 at 5:18pm
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inspector
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Quote inspector Replybullet Posted: 04 March 2007 at 3:51pm
The posted course is FSI not DLI. They are entirely different but both produced by the US Govt. Neither are copyrighted. FSI and DLI come from different branches of the government. FSI is State Dept related and DLI related to military.

I would love to see this site expanded to include DLI material also. For example, the DLI material for Turkish is massive and far more complete compared with the FSI material.
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WaterMellon
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Quote WaterMellon Replybullet Posted: 06 March 2007 at 8:54pm
I also am interested ...
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Chung
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Quote Chung Replybullet Posted: 06 March 2007 at 9:44pm
See here: http://fsi-language-courses.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=256&KW=dli&PID=1016#1016
 
gdfellows is playing it safe and has avoided posting DLI courses here. There are three problems with DLI courses and this site.
 
The first problem is a small one and relates to copyright. Presumably copyright is not a major obstacle since as far as we can tell DLI courses are ultimately part of a federal organization i.e. the US Army. Thus it seems that DLI courses have no copyright protection in the USA.
 
The second problem is a larger one and relates to the observation that some of the DLI courses that we have seen have stamps/markings in the books stating that DLI courses are meant only for authorized personnel. (military personnel? raw recruits?)
 
A third problem is that there is also some confusion since a few contributors have noted that the foreword/introduction of a few DLI courses mention that they can be distributed without hindrance so long as they are not being distributed for a profit. This contradicts those stamps that some of us have seen which indicate that only authorized people may use the courses.
 
For the sake of avoiding misunderstandings (arising especially the confusion surrounding the second and third problems), gdfellows has stated already that he will stay clear from DLI courses because it is not 100% certain if they are eligible for posting. It's far more preferable to stick to what is 100% certain than to take a chance on something that is less than 100% certain. That second case could lead to the entire site being shut down because gdfellows broke some rule or law pertaining to the posting of one unauthorized course.
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inspector
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Quote inspector Replybullet Posted: 07 March 2007 at 3:53pm
It seems that there are various groups assigned to create DLI material for each language and consistency among them is lacking. I have a complete hardcover 14 volume set of Turkish DLI-not the tapes-that was given to me. Created April 1965, revised 1980. There are no warnings. Only the following exists in the front of each volume:

"The Turkish Basic Course, consisting of 112 lessons in 14 volumes, was developed at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center.

The course is designed to train native English language speakers for a Level 3 proficiency in comprehending, speaking, reading, and writing Turkish. The texts and tapes were designed for use in the DLIFLC's intensive programs employing the audiolingual and cognitive approach."

Sales to the public exist of these materials and I do not know of any restrictions. If there is concern about damaging the work done to the FSI body of work, is it possible to consider a completely separate, but essentially parallel site, e.g., "dli-language-courses.com"?

Maybe risk exists, but this seems extremely small. The DLI statements are inconsistent and the materials are already widely available, (commonly used among expats in Turkey.) It is worth considering in my opinion.

The depth of the DLI material exceeds FSI material greatly, even though the FSI is excellent.

I worked for a branch of the government for a number of years and a portion of that time in Washington. As an investigator for that branch I was surprised to see that several companies existed that sent runners to our headquarters to collect the latest updates to our "internal" investigator operations and compliance manuals.

These private companies then reprinted this and mailed it to those in industry and business who subscribed to their service--at unbelievably high prices. However, it is easier and less expensive for big corporations to get up-to-date info this way than send someone to Washington themselves.

The point is, I am not sure of any information that is not publically available from government agencies-short of NSA and CIA top secret material. To my knowledge, government materials paid for taxpayers cannot be copyrighted and can be used as the public chooses--even to the extent of selling it again at a profit to people who choose not to get it directly from the government source.

Love to hear some more on this.
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Chung
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Quote Chung Replybullet Posted: 07 March 2007 at 4:52pm

Inspector, I hear what you're saying about the inconsistency of DLI's notices, but...

Take a look at this exchange. (smoen got a hold of DLI Russian but understands gdfellows' position and hasn't forced the issue. I understand that smoen is digitalizing the DLI Russian course, but it'd be up to him (i.e. smoen) whether he'd want to redistribute it.)
 
 
I agree that language learning material hardly seems classified or off-limits to civilians. The thing is that gdfellows has chosen to play it very safely, and it's understandable.
 
On a related note, if a hypothetical website for DLI courses were to appear, it would then be the responsibility of that webmaster. gdfellows has made it clear that he sticks to FSI material that clearly comes directly from NTIS.
 
There is a risk for gdfellows if he were to post something that may not turn out to be eligible for posting after all. It's not a question of "maybe" nor of whether that risk is small or not.
 
We need to remember that it is gdfellows who's holding the bag, not us. If the head of DLI or a lawyer who specializes in copyright/intellectual property can give a 100% guarantee to gdfellows that he can post DLI stuff without threat of penalty, then he may reconsider his decision. It goes back to his decision to stick with what is 100% safe for posting rather than what seems less than 100% safe for posting.
 
Put yourself in gdfellows' shoes:
 
1) "I, gdfellows am hosting a bunch of public-domain courses from FSI and I am holding the bag financially and legally on this website."
 
2) "I, gdfellows can understand the probable frustration that comes from resellers of FSI courses who charge top dollar for the stuff (e.g. Multilingual Books, Audio-Forum, learn-how-to-speak.com, etc.). I'm sure that they would love nothing more than for my website to be shut down. That would be a shame since a lot of people would lose out on a fine resource for learning languages."
 
3) "As much as those resellers can't do anything yet to accuse me of copyright infringement (so long as I stick to what is clearly public-domain and without restrictions on redistribution), I must keep doing everything carefully and err on the side of caution. I don't want to break any rules or laws that could give an opening to private resellers and their lawyers to accuse me of committing some kind of offense (no matter how minor it may seem) and thus act as justification for them to force the closure of this site. Even if my lawyer could prove my innocence in court and get me exonerated, the costs to mount that legal defense, win or lose would still be costly (if not utterly ruinous) and thus is a risk for me all the same."
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DemiPuppet
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Quote DemiPuppet Replybullet Posted: 07 March 2007 at 9:17pm
The major problem with DLI works is that we don't know for sure whether they were "prepared by ... an employee of the United  States Government as pert of that person's official duties" or whether they were contracted works of hire. FSI books generally contain a preface that clearly states which employee(s) did the work.  The DLI books are not so explicit.

If a contractor produced the works, they may or may not have assigned the copyright to the government.  Even if they did assign the copyright, it is still not in the public domain (see the court case Schnapper v. Foley).  In fact, one could claim that these should be considered unpublished works. Publication means that they were sold sold or publicly distributed.  Internal use by the DOD would not constitute publication. As unpublished works prior to 1989, they wouldn't need a copyright notice yet would still have a 120 year copyright.  Fortunately this is not a concern with FSI books. Most have a notice on the inside back cover listing sales to the general public.


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