Katie Dean, Saving the Artistic Orphans, Wired News, September 20, 2004. Excerpt: "Valuable resources are being lost to students, researchers and historians because of sweeping changes in copyright law, according to digital archivists who are suing the government. These resources -- older books, films and music -- are often out of print and considered no longer commercially viable, but are still locked up under copyright. Locating copyright owners is a formidable challenge because Congress no longer requires that owners register or renew their copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office....In a suit filed in March, the plaintiffs in Kahle v. Ashcroft [Brewster Kahle and Rick Prelinger] argue that multiple changes to copyright law have essentially made it impossible for works to return to the public domain. They want to have these changes declared unconstitutional....The law 'imposes enormous burdens on speech without any countervailing benefit to anybody,' said Chris Sprigman, a fellow at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, who is representing the plaintiff. 'It doesn't benefit the public because it keeps creative works locked up, and it doesn't benefit private rights holders because these works are out of print.'...These rules are especially frustrating now that the digital world makes it so easy to distribute content. Archivists say that digitizing these old books, photographs and films, for instance, could be a boon for research and education."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/21/2004 10:00:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
