An article in The Register talks about how the German arm of the music publishing industry forced a Canadian distributing public domain works to shut down. Unlike Canada that uses the Bern life+50 term of copyright, Germany is under a life+70 years and thus works which are in the public domain (IE: no longer under copyright) in Canada are still under copyright for another 20 years in Germany.
This is a case where some lawyers, or the Federal Government, wanting to protect the integrity of Canadian law should step up and offer to defend this distributor. It is not reasonable for a Canadian distributor to be forced into the technologically impossible task of blocking "foreign" Internet connections to his service. A clear legal waiver explaining that the site is legal only in that majority of countries that use life+50 should suffice.
Please also read: IMSLP forum: Public messages from IMSLP's admins after the takedown, Heise online, Slyck, .
Shame that he decided not to fight this
I would have thought that adding a clear disclaimer along the lines of "Note that this material is in the public domain in Canada, but may still be under copyright where you live." would be sufficient.
Are German courts that keen to assert jurisdiction over Canadian websites ?
Individuals can't be expected to fight lawyers..
This is one of those issues that requires a lawyer, law clinic or other such organization to step up and fight this. Most people reasonably listen to dictates from lawyer letters, even if they believe the lawyer is wrong, as they can't afford to defend themselves in court.
Given some of the most respected Canadian lawyers and law professors are already engaged in this issue, I suspect some arrangement will be possible where the site will be put back online. These things take a bit of time. We need to keep the visibility of this issue high.
Remember: this isn't a "different" group than those operating in Canada, but a national rebranding of the same major publisher that operates transnationally. I am surprised they didn't send the letter from a Mexican branch office, given that copyright act is so messed up as to offer life+100 years for copyright.
Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) consultant.
Competitive Advantage for Canada
One of the interesting things about this is that it demonstrates to a limited extent how a shorter copyright term can be a competitive advantage for companies in the country in question.
In this case, it's not a commercial site, but it could have been - one that wouldn't be able to operate in the USA, Mexico or Europe, but that can operate in Canada because of our more rational copyright laws.
Unfortunately, the USA seems to be successfully pushing to level this particular playing field.