Got the permission to share it?

This lesson is very interesting, but did we get the permission to share it?
I wrote them almost two weeks ago and haven’t received any answer yet. Maybe Sandra (the uploader) had better luck…
Anyway, we do need an explicit permission to share this content.
By the way, Advanced 2 is way too high a level. I would say they are Intermediate 1.

No one seems to care about this possible copyright violation…

I care. And I think this is quite unfair compared to all who respect copyrights. But the LingQ stuff seems to dislike this topic. I guess Europeans have different opinions about this than canadians … Not to talk about some other parts of the world.

The problem is that there are rules on LingQ but LingQ don’t take care of them. Less work, more content. In Germany it can be very, very expensive if you share copyrighted material. Not only for the provider, for the website as well. And to say you’ll remove it doesn’t prevent you from paying.

The LingQ staff care in their own way, I am quite sure. LingQ.com is not governed by European law, after all.

But I am of your opinion: Copyright needs to be respected. (Some members of my family are trying to make a living through writing - it’s not easy!)

The law is clear. If they sell their product in Europe they have to respect European laws.

@Sanne: I can feel with your family members. I want to hear more about that. I would love speaking to you. Do you have time tomorrow?

I am in Germany at the moment, at my granddaughter’s mercy. Not easy to find time. Ende nächster Woche?

Vera, I know you do care a lot about this issue, much more than anyone else on this site.

Whenever we are informed of content in our library that is under copyright, or for which we do not think permission has been obtained,we contact the provider to find out the status or remove the offending content from the store. We must have missed this thread but I am sure Alex will be on it today.

I don’t know why Vera would say that we don’t care. I consider that not respecting copyright is like stealing.

You wait to be informed instead taking care of it on your own. I would appreciate if the LingQ stuff would check the library sometimes. I don’t want to look like the “police” here.

LingQ.com runs in Canada, not in Germany, or Europe.

And it’s interesting that you’ll find quite often material, that is copyrighted in many countries, on Canadian sites for free download.

Examples:

L’Étranger (Camus), still copyrighted in France: Politique d'utilisation de la biblioth�que des Classiques ( http://classiques.uqac.ca/ … )

Le Petit Prince, still copyrighted in France: Wikilivres : un blog littérature, web et marketing

Der kleine Prinz, of course copyrighted in Germany: Wikilivres : un blog littérature, web et marketing

( Wikilivres : un blog littérature, web et marketing says on its homepage: “This site is hosted in Canada and therefore it follows the Canadian copyright law.” )

It seems that the German publisher etc. cannot hinder this.

File sharing in Canada - Wikipedia (Wikipedia / File sharing in Canada)
says:
“Canada, practically the only government of a developed country not to have implemented international copyright treaties agreed over a decade ago, is a major source of the world’s piracy problem. A disproportionate number of illegal sites are hosted on Canadian soil.
[…]
Overall the piracy picture in Canada is at least as bleak as it was a year ago, and it is cementing its reputation as a haven where technologically sophisticated international piracy organizations can operate with virtual impunity.”

Yes, Hape, but this time we are not talking about literary works, but about radio podcasts broadcast in 2011. So, I doubt they would be free of copyright, even in Canada.

Vera, we are not going to police what people put up. We ask them clearly not to put up material that is not free of copyright and we remove any offending material we are made aware of. That is the same policy of youtube. We have 15 languages and adding one a month. It is simply not worth our while, nor would it serve any useful purpose, in my view to spend time policing content.

Hape, the length of time before a work is considered free of copyright varies from country to country. This is much like the situation with generic drugs where rules vary from country to country. In any case, LingQ is not a centre for piracy and we are not going to change how we operate. I know nothing about the differences between Canadian law and German law when it comes to copyright protection. Nor is it obvious what degree of protection the original authors are entitled to.

I might add that I do not understand organizations like Nuntii Latini, that put out into the public domain, material that is of very little interest to the world, and then refuse to answer emails. I do not understand why they would not be happy for LingQ to use their material in our library and spread the word about the good work they are doing.

I agree, Steve. It would be in their interest to answer and allow us to share their material.

Our approach to policing copyright violations is much like the policing of people who take public transit in many countries. People are expected to buy a ticket, but they are rarely checked. If they are discovered to be cheating the system they are fined. In our case, if we discover material that is i violation of our rules, in other words, shared without permission, we take it down. There is no damage to anyone. We mostly keep copyrighted material out of the library.

Move operations to Sweden, where copyright laws are a pirate’s dream.

Well, Steve, now I have alerted you about this lesson being shared with no permission (as of now). So, why hasn’t it been unshared yet?

Hey, hey, hey! Not only it was not unshared, but five more lessons were added! Please, tell Sandra she can’t share them or ask her to let us know if she got a permission and didn’t tell us.

I have just written a message on Sandra’s wall, but maybe, Steve, given your authority :), you could write her too.

So, any updates? I see the lessons are still there…

@mikebond - For some reason, I wasn’t following this new forum so all of these posts went under my radar. Apologies for the delayed response. I’ve now unshared the lessons in this collection and have written on Sandra’s wall. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. In cases like this, it might be better to alert me through email.