Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages)

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Le Baron
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Re: Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages)

Postby Le Baron » Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:03 pm

Quite a number are blocked and not able to be viewed. I don't know if it's just in Europe or universally. Practically all the Spanish (and other FIGS books I tried out).
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Re: Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages)

Postby IntrepidLearner » Sun Dec 26, 2021 7:44 pm

Le Baron wrote:Quite a number are blocked and not able to be viewed. I don't know if it's just in Europe or universally. Practically all the Spanish (and other FIGS books I tried out).


Thank you for letting me know. It may be that any resources marked "Public Domain in the United States" are IP restricted to the U.S. Can anyone else corroborate this? If that's the case, it would be really lousy since virtually all the works listed there were published in the U.S. and thus public domain everywhere.
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Re: Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages)

Postby rdearman » Sun Dec 26, 2021 9:41 pm

IntrepidLearner wrote:
Le Baron wrote:Quite a number are blocked and not able to be viewed. I don't know if it's just in Europe or universally. Practically all the Spanish (and other FIGS books I tried out).


Thank you for letting me know. It may be that any resources marked "Public Domain in the United States" are IP restricted to the U.S. Can anyone else corroborate this? If that's the case, it would be really lousy since virtually all the works listed there were published in the U.S. and thus public domain everywhere.

Actually no. Due to crazy US intellectual property laws, I think you'll find it is the opposite, and things public domain in the USA are illegal virtually everywhere. I explained this in great detail here:

https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 20#p198309
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Re: Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages) (mostly U.S. only)

Postby IntrepidLearner » Sun Dec 26, 2021 9:56 pm

Understood. I believe this also applies to works produced by the U.S. Government (see here), so perhaps this forum should stop listing FSI, DLI, Peace Core, and similar works in relevant resource posts. Just thought I should let you know.

Relevant quote:

This act [section 105 of the Copyright Act] only applies to U.S. domestic copyright as that is the extent of U.S. federal law. The U.S. government asserts that it can still hold the copyright to those works in other countries.

Publication of an otherwise protected work by the U.S. government does not put that work in the public domain. For example, government publications may include works copyrighted by a contractor or grantee; copyrighted material assigned to the U.S. Government; or copyrighted information from other sources.


Edit:

Whether HathiTrust thinks a given FSI, DLI, or Peace Core language material is public domain everywhere is decidedly mixed, however the following five materials are public domain only in the U.S.: Finnish Graded Reader Hungarian Graded Reader Elementary Chinese, DLI Levantine Arabic A Short Reference Grammar of Iraqi Arabic, FSI. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

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Re: Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages) (mostly U.S. only)

Postby guyome » Mon Dec 27, 2021 9:41 am

Yes, most of these are out of my reach too. I don't know whether this is due to US copyright laws or to mere carelessness on the part of Hathitrust. I remember getting in touch with the Google Books team, a few years back, to ask them why access to volume 5 of Zottoli's Cursus Litteraturae Sinicae (published in 1880 in China; Zottoli died in 1902) was restricted when other volumes were available without problem. To their credit, they quickly messaged me back and lifted the restrictions.
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Re: Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages) (mostly U.S. only)

Postby IntrepidLearner » Mon Dec 27, 2021 5:16 pm

Thank you for the feedback. I've updated these listing by prepending an asterisk to all Non-PD-US materials.
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Re: Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages)

Postby księżycowy » Tue Dec 28, 2021 8:28 pm

Just FYI, some of these resources are available for download (as opposed to being blocked by Hathi's partner login) from either the institution that published it or on ERIC.
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Re: Free Language Learning Materials Courtesy of HathiTrust (450 resources in 57 languages) (mostly U.S. only)

Postby Cainntear » Thu Dec 30, 2021 2:02 pm

IntrepidLearner wrote:Understood. I believe this also applies to works produced by the U.S. Government (see here), so perhaps this forum should stop listing FSI, DLI, Peace Core, and similar works in relevant resource posts. Just thought I should let you know.

That's interesting -- thank you.
I'm sure I've heard people claim that this is invalid internationally, because it effectively makes the material public domain in the US, and the Berne Convention prevents the US government from doing what they're attempting to do here, but I've never heard of this being argued in any court case.
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