October, 2007

LibriVox reaches 1,000!

Posted on October 31, 2007 by | Posted in about LibriVox, News | Comments: 5 Comments on LibriVox reaches 1,000!

Well, we did it. We just cataloged our 1,000th book, and for that a huge thank you must go out to everyone who has ever said or written the word LibriVox. Thank you first to the readers for lending their voices to something wonderful; to the Book Coordinators who pull things together; to the Meta Coordinators who get all this audio up on the net; to the Moderators who keep things running smoothly on our forum. And of course the other people: the proof listeners, the catalog development team, the web site designers and fixers, and all the forum volunteers of every stripe.

And more: to our listeners, and supporters, to Dan for keeping the servers running; to the Internet Archive for providing hosting for all our media, which makes it all possible; to Project Gutenberg (and other public domain projects) for liberating all this wonderful text onto the web.

And of course a big thank you to all our families and friends who live with our varying levels of LibriVox addiction.

Thank you thank you thank you…

And below is the “official press release” (or whatever it’s called) …

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LibriVox makes it to 1,000!

LibriVox, the free audio book project has just cataloged its 1,000th book: “Murders in the Rue Morgue”, by Edgar Allan Poe (read by Reynard T. Fox).

LibriVox.org started in August 2005 with a simple objective: “to make all public domain books available as free audio books.” Thirteen people collaborated to make the first recording, Joseph Conrad’s “Secret Agent.”

Two years later, LibriVox has become the most prolific audiobook publisher in the world – we are now putting out 60-70 books a month, we have a catalog of 1,000 works, which represents a little over 6 months of *continuous* audio; we have some 1,500 volunteers who have contributed audio to the project; and a catalog that includes Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice,” “Moby Dick,” Darwin’s “Origin of the Species,” “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” Einstein’s “Relativity: The Special and General Theory,” Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” and other less well-known gems such as “Romance of Rubber” edited by John Martin. We have recordings in 21 languages, and about half of our recordings are solo efforts by one reader, while the other half are collaborations among many readers.

We are always looking for new volunteers! Come join us.

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Librivox Community Podcast #59

Posted on October 25, 2007 by | Posted in Librivox Community Podcast, News | Comments: Comments Off on Librivox Community Podcast #59

Listen to Librivox Community Podcast Show #59 Celebrating Librivox’s 1000th recording [audio:http://www.archive.org/download/librivox_community/librivox_community_podcast_59.mp3]

This week’s host is Cori Samuel

Approaching 1000 titles in the LibriVox catalogue!

Music credit: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s 1812: recording entered into the Public Domain at http://www.musopen.com/

Contributions from: Hugh, Rowen, Kri, AmethystA, LeonMire, SmokestackJones, DebraLynn, kmerline, knotyouraveragejo, kayray, Shurtagal, Starlite, CarlM, earthcalling – thankyou all EVER SO MUCH for your marvellous words. And for saving the world from my kazoo playing.

Past and present Librivox Community Podcast files can be found at Archive.org

Archived shownotes for the Librivox Community Podcast can be found at http://librivox.org/category/librivox-community-podcast/
and the rss feed for those shownotes is http://librivox.org/category/librivox-community-podcast/feed

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public domain music trouble

Posted on October 22, 2007 by | Posted in News | Comments: 7 Comments on public domain music trouble

I was on a panel about copyright at the media and democracy conference, with Tina Piper and Owen Chapman. Someone asked about Public Domain music, and I said, yes there is a site, but I can’t remember what.

Well, via Geist, it appears the International Music Score Library Project, a volunteer, non-profit public domain music score project (canadian too), has been shut down, we hope temporarily because of nasty letters from a Toronto Law firm, engaged by an Austrian music publisher, Universal AG.

The substance of the claim is that while much of the music *is* public domain in Canada, it is not public domain in the EU, and because IMSLP.org is a web site that does not restrict where downloaders are coming from, then it is in violation of copyright law. Essentially this would mean that wherever in the world the longest copyright term exists, that term must be applied in all countries, regardless of the copyright laws in host country. Which, as Geist and Boing Boing point out, means that the concept of public domain online would ultimately disappear (as there could always be another country with a longer copyright term). Says Geist:

As for a European infringement, if UE is correct, then the public domain becomes an offline concept, since posting works online would immediately result in the longest single copyright term applying on a global basis. That can’t possibly be right. Canada has chosen a copyright term that complies with its international obligations and attempts to import longer terms – as is the case here – should not only be rejected but treated as copyright misuse.

LibriVox has had similar claims from copyright lawyers over the past couple of years, and we pushed back (with the help of Project Gutenberg), with our most compelling claim being:

Project Gutenberg has done exhaustive research over the years on this subject, and has not found any indication that the copyright laws of one country will have any force in any other country, even in cases of publishing materials on the Internet or the World Wide Web…

However, if you do come across any new case law or rulings that might effect some change, please let us know and we will discuss with our informal advisers at Project Gutenberg, so that they can update their research concerning such cases. As always, we will follow the legal standard that Project Gutenberg uses.

I’ve contacted IMSLP.org to offer moral and any other support I can, on behalf of LibriVox.

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Librivox Community Podcast #58- technical podcast #5

Posted on October 20, 2007 by | Posted in Librivox Community Podcast, News, recording tips | Comments: 1 Comment on Librivox Community Podcast #58- technical podcast #5

Listen to Librivox Community Podcast Show #58–MojoMove Tech Voxcast #5 [audio:http://www.archive.org/download/librivox_community/librivox_community_podcast_58.mp3]

This week’s hosts are Robert Scott and M.L. Cohen.
The theme for the show is: To Breathe or not to Breathe
( Breaths and lipsmacks etc…)

Past and present Librivox Community Podcast files can be found at Archive.org

Archived shownotes for the Librivox Community Podcast can be found at http://librivox.org/category/librivox-community-podcast/
and the rss feed for those shownotes is http://librivox.org/category/librivox-community-podcast/feed

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