105667265521712968
Look at me! 3 posts in one day! Well, I am trying to make up for the fact that Blogger kept me from actually writing in my blog over the last couple of days.
If you read Lawrence Lessig’s blog (and there is no reason that you shouldn’t be reading it every day), you’ll notice that the “Eldred Act” has been officially introduced into Congress as HR 2601!
What is the Eldred Act? You can read everything there is about it at Eric Eldred’s website, but in a nutshell, it is a law whose purpose is to reclaim the public domain by requiring that copyright holders who wish to retain their copyright after 50 years pay a small maintenance fee. Why is this so important? Well, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.
Some companies have lobbied for increasingly longer copyright terms to protect their still commercially exploitable copyright properties, and the downside of this push is that millions of works that would otherwise be made available to the public remain incumbered by 95 year copyright terms. When you combine that with the fact that only 2% of copyrighted properties from 1925-1960 are still commercially viable, it means that the majority of important works languish and disappear to protect the very small minority.
The Eldred Act balances the scales a little bit by allowing companies that wish to continue utilizing their copyrighted material to pay a fee, but for those 98% of the properties that are no longer commercially viable, the public is able to use them in the way the constitution outlines.
I encourage you to contact your Representative and ask them to support HR 2601.
I know, I know… I said no more politics… but just a little bit won’t hurt. 
Recent Comments