[Commons-l] Dream a little...

Mon Oct 16 13:25:52 UTC 2006

On 10/15/06, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Making copyright reasonably shorter would only make the preservation
> of old works even harder by removing the incentive to preserve old
> works

I strongly disagree. Projects like Gutenberg, DP, the various digital
libraries at universities, etc. have proven that once you remove the
barriers of traditional copyright, the amount of work that can be done
to preserve content is multiplied. Furthermore, economic analysis has
shown that the vast majority of content that is "trapped" by copyright
actually has hardly any economic value anymore (check the Amicus
Curiae briefs in the Eldred case). Market forces alone tend to be poor
guardians of history.
-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

Member, Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees

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