fyi... about a public domain literature site...
http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/index.html (Eldritch Press)
Julia Gelfand
<jgelfand[_at_]sun1.lib.uci.edu>
> Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 22:44:12 -0500
> To: declan[_at_]well.com
> From: Jonathan Zittrain <zittrain[_at_]law.harvard.edu
> Subject: copyright lawsuit
>
> FYI!
>
> How Long Is Too Long? Recent Congressional Copyright Giveaway
> Claimed Unconstitutional
>
> January 12, 1999
>
> - Cambridge, MA - Lawrence Lessig, the Berkman Professor of Law at
> Harvard Law School, announced today the filing of a lawsuit on
> behalf of Eldritch Press, a non-profit organization that posts
> literary works in the public domain onto the Internet. The suit
> challenges Congress's recent retroactive extension of the term of
> copyright by another twenty years. Professor Lessig is joined as
> counsel by Professor Charles Nesson and Jonathan Zittrain of the
> Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, and
> Geoffrey Stewart of Hale and Dorr.
>
> In 1790, Congress provided for up to twenty-eight years for a work's
> copyright--after which the work would enter the public domain, freely
> copyable and usable by anyone. Since then, Congress has enacted a
> series of extensions, including the Copyright Act of 1976, which
> provided for copyright terms of up to seventy-five years --
> retroactively extending copyright for works written long ago and
> otherwise about to enter the public domain.
>
> Last year, Congress once again retroactively extended copyright
> terms through the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998
> (CTEA). A book published in 1923 under the old law would have come
> into the public domain on January 1, 1999, but under the new statute
> the copyright prevents the work from entering the public domain
> until January 1, 2019.
>
> "You get the feeling that works created on or after 1923 seem destined
> never to enter the public domain; Congress arbitrarily extends the
> copyright monopoly on them every twenty years, by another twenty years,
> like clockwork," said Zittrain. "It's particularly troublesome when
> the speed and access of the Internet promises a substantial audience
> for the works that remain locked up."
>
> Fortunately, the Constitution offers clear guidance on the subject.
> In enumerating Congress's powers in Article I, section 8, it clearly
> says that Congress may "... promote the Progress of Science and useful
> Arts, by securing for LIMITED TIMES to Authors and Inventors the
> exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
> (emphasis added).
>
> "The Constitution empowers Congress to propose a bargain whereby
> authors have a limited time to benefit exclusively from their work,
> after which the public may freely benefit from the intellectual
> property they create," said Nesson. "This allows for an economic
> incentive to publish while also respecting the public's ultimate
> right to share and share alike with speech. That's why the
> Constitution provides that Congress's judgment be carefully
> scrutinized when it seems intent on making a copyright go on
> indefinitely--or when it allows for the odd bargain of, retroactively,
> more monopoly time for authors who are long dead, or have long since
> transferred their rights in their work to someone else, having been
> fully willing to work with the shorter copyright time limit at the
> time they wrote."
>
> Eric Eldred founded the Eldritch Press in late 1995 as a means of
> demonstrating that computers could be used to present books on the
> Internet in new ways, and in ways that improved upon the capabilities
> of print books. Initially, the Eldritch Press began with works of
> American literature, by authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver
> Wendell Holmes (Sr.), and Henry James. Because some of the works
> Eldritch Press posts are not included in library collections or are
> long out of print, they are not obtainable by the public in any other
> way. The Eldritch Press now posts new works the moment they enter
> the public domain.
>
> The Eldritch Press site receives as many as 4,000 visitors per day
> and has been accessed from virtually all countries in the world. It
> has been recognized as one of the 20 best humanities sites on the
> Web from edSITEment (National Endowment for the Humanities).
>
> More information about the case, and an opportunity to join a coalition
> in support of it, may be found at
>
> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/eldredvreno.
>
>
> ###
>
>
> Contact:
>
> Emily Lenzner
> Berkman Center for Internet & Society
> 617/495-7547
> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/
>
> Eric Eldred
> The Eldritch Press
> http://eldred.ne.mediaone.net/
>
>
> Jon Zittrain
> Harvard Law School
> Executive Director, Berkman Center for Internet & Society
> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/
> Lecturer on Law
> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is98/
> http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/msdoj/
> + 1 617 495 4643
> + 1 617 495 7641 (fax)
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