At the same meeting that launched Lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons, Tim O'Reilly announced that all O'Reilly books by consenting authors would be given only a 14 year copyright before passing into the public domain. Copyrights lasted for 14 years at the time the U.S. Constitution was ratified, but now last for the author's life plus 70 years, or 95 years for works by corporations.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 5/30/2002 12:16:00 PM.
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.