The public domain as an element of commerce, or how I searched for “War and Peace” by Tolstoy ...

I decided the other day to find Leo Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace - I think it’s time to reread it without haste, to go into every detail. Well, and at the same time - to find for the younger generation a version where, in addition to the chapter number, there is also its brief content such as “Chapter is this and that, where ...” (an indispensable thing for schoolchildren who are asked to find and analyze this or that episode). I remember that my grandmother, a teacher of Russian language and literature, had such a two-volume book - however, only the second volume reached me (her students “took care of the first one”). Without hesitation, I inserted a request into the search engine, followed the link to the library, found the complete works, it contains the required volume, and all of a sudden ... (In the screenshot - another work by L.N. Tolstoy. In fact, specifically in that list I passed through many works - they all turned out to be “appealed by the copyright holder.” When I finally decided to start taking screenshots and closely tackle this topic, my choice fell on “Complete Works, Prohibited by Censorship” - so to speak, on the topic of the day.)



That is, it turns out that someone considered himself the copyright holder of the works of Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (who died, as is known, in 1910) ... This is interesting, I thought, and began to understand. Details - under the cut.

The first thing I thought was maybe I don’t know something, and the works of Lev Nikolayevich still have not become public property? It seems that at school (oh, it was a long time ago!) We were told that for many years they went into this very category ... I check:

Public domain (English Public Domain) - a set of creative works, the property copyright for which has expired or never existed ... All can be distributed and used by the public domain without restrictions.

Bold is mine. And further…

In the general case, the work goes into the public domain in Russia, if 70 years have passed since the death of its author.

That is the work of Leo Tolstoy moved into this category since 1981. So ... What, then, for the "copyright holder" such appeared?

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Liters? What liters? Follow the link ...


The rightholder is a kind of “Library Fund”. He turned to Liters with a request to comment on this situation (the announcement of someone by the copyright holder + the “translation of arrows” link in the online libraries on Liters). Got a response from them:

The digitized copy of the book, in pdf-file format, is provided from the archives of the library fund of the Russian State Library.
This copy of the work is completely free.
Our company can not be responsible for the operation of other sites. For some reason, a work “closed at the request of the copyright holder” on other resources can only be guessed.

Please note: " copy of the work is completely free !" But “free” is not yet “free”, right? My guess is this: a robot is responsible for searching for “distributions” at liters: it searches for matches by name and (or) authors, automatically sends “letters of happiness” to those who, according to liters, distribute books illegally. How is the base formed? - yes, most likely automatically: considering how many books are published only in Russia (the bill goes to tens of thousands), it is unlikely that a “living person” will be allocated to this function. Consequently - they row everything and everyone, one size fits all - both the pelevin, and Pushkin, and Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy ... would not be surprised if the next time I see a Bible in a network library, which is “locked” with a litres or some other “copyright holder” ". Well, the fact that someone from attentive readers, stumbled upon such a redirection, began to dig deeper - pure coincidence. It is said to you - “copy is free”! Like, take, use ... And do not ask stupid questions - neither for yourself nor for people ... And the fact that there are artificial restrictions in the distribution of these works (at least, the need to go to other sites), they say, ask the owners of that site where this misunderstanding was discovered. Although that's a bad luck, what's the reason for restricting access to free works, taking their visitors to a commercial resource? Is that part of the code link "from% 3D2272045", on which they go there, helps the library to earn extra money? Referral program? Then why did the representatives of Liters say nothing about her?

In fact, there are other branches in this network library, from which everything is perfectly downloaded (although there may be other versions posted there - for example, the mentioned novel will be presented not as a version from the 90-volume complete collection of works, but as a separate edition - this is me have not checked).

PS While I was dealing with a question, I found an interesting note . It turns out that Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy was a supporter of "anti-copyright":

In 1891, he sent a letter to the editorial office of the magazines Russkiye Vedomosti and Novaya Zhizn, in which he wrote:

“My dear sir, due to the requests for permission to publish, translate and put my essays on stage, I often receive, I ask you to place my statement in the newspaper you publish:

I give everyone the right to publish free of charge in Russia and abroad, in Russian and in translation, as well as to put on stage all those of my writings that have been written by me since 1881 and printed in the XII volume of my complete works of the 1886 edition, and in volume XIII, published this year in 1891, is equal to all my works that were not published in Russia and that can reappear after this day. ”

For hurt?