I want to believe.
[ Posted by Dan on February 04, 2003 | 1 Comments ]

I am, at best, a copyright neophyte. With little experience and too few hours spent considering the issue, I come accross a proposal by Lessig that seems to make sense...

The basic idea is this: 50 years after a work has been "published," a copyright owner would be required to pay a copyright tax. That tax should be extremely low--this proposal says $50, but it could be $1. If the copyright holder does not pay the tax for 3 years, then the work is forfeit to the public domain. If the copyright holder does pay the tax, then its contacting agent would be made a matter of public record. Very quickly we would have a cheap, searchable record, of what work is controlled and what work is free.

The idea seems worth considering, but since I haven't spent much time doing that, I don't really have anything to add other than some blog space.

 

		Well, I wouldn't say that. 50 years after the author's death, or 75 years flat for things owned by an organization. I believe that's what is required to maintain our international copyright treaties. Definitely no closer to the author's death. The whole "x years after author's death" wasn't established to benefit the author's heirs, it was to prevent someone from bumping off the author. -Posted by jc on February 5, 2003 09:21 AM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).