More on the Eldred case....Lawrence Lessig restates the argument against copyright extension in the December 12 CIO Insight. Excerpt: "This additional 20 years of protection means 20 more years of licensing before content can be easily used on the Internet. And while lawyers don’t often recognize the burden the law imposes on business, businesses can easily recognize the burden of 20 more years of licensing. Imagine a world where used bookstores would have to pay royalties each time a used book was sold: Would there be any used bookstores? Or imagine a world where you had to sign a contract before you were allowed to link to another site on the World Wide Web. Would there be a World Wide Web? And if you think that’s bad, imagine having to deal with copyright term extensions for works created in 1923. You’d need to get the permission of unknown and effectively untraceable owners before you could put content on the Web. That is our future if copyright terms continue to grow."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/26/2002 02:48:00 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.
