[brandon_wirtz]

The author doesn't understand copyright. There is a difference between Legal, and beyond prosecution.

You as an individual living in a far off land (Australia) can't be prosecuted in Australia for copying a copy you legally obtained in the US. There is no extradition that will allow for the US to come get you in Australia. So if you copied, and you never visited the US you would be Safe from prosecution. You would not be legal. (There is a difference)

If you were Amazon. You have locations in the US and Australia. You are an international entity. You can not distribute Gatsby in Australia, because you are violating the copyright of the country of the original copyright, and you have presence in that country.

So the author's headline is wrong. You aren't "Legal" you are just beyond prosecution.

This isn't to say that I think Gatsby shouldn't be public domain... Just that the author is wrong.

[mekoka]

It's my understanding that The Great Gatsby is already in the public domain in some countries (Canada, Australia), hence legal to distribute (and obtain for free), if one is subject to their copyright laws. Unless there's something that I missed, the author is not wrong.

[tjmc]

You are correct. Australian copyright law used to be 50 years after the death of the author until the Australia-US free trade agreement a few years back. Now, thanks to our good friends at Disney it's 70 years like the US. However, stuff that had already passed into the public domain (Eg George Orwell) at the time of the agreement stayed public.

[btilly]

I was going to correct you, spent time going through the Berne Convention to be able to say why you are wrong.

Then I read http://www.ip-watch.org/2012/03/15/more-foreigners-find-them... which let me know that you are right.

If the courts can identify some connection between the infringing act and the USA, then you can be sued by the USA. And the kinds of connections that have been deemed sufficient are pretty tenuous. For instance uploading to a website that - entirely unbeknown to you - automatically backs up to a US server suffices for US law to apply to you.

[gluejar]

The author understands copyright enough to know that a full understanding of copyright is not compatible with sanity.