January 1 was Public Domain Day, marking the passage into the public domain of works whose copyright expired in 2009. In countries where copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years (such as the European Union and Australia), works entering the public domain include those of Sigmund Freud, William Butler Yeats, and Zane Grey. In countries with a life plus 50 copyright (such as Canada), works entering the public domain include those of Raymond Chandler and Frank Lloyd Wright. The U.S. has a life+70 copyright but thanks to a legal quirk, no published works will enter the public domain until 2019.
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 1/04/2010 04:58:00 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.
