Tracking New Public Domain Content
January 14, 2012
We found a Web site that takes the public domain very seriously. PublicDomainDay.org lists works as their copyrights are up and they enter the public domain. In the US and the European Union, copyright terms expire 70 years after the author does, while other countries like Canada and New Zealand wait 50 years.
The site’s about page seeks to emphasize the importance of public domain works. It quotes Professor James Boyle’s 2008 book, “The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind:”
Our markets, our democracy, our science, our traditions of free speech, and our art all depend more heavily on a Public Domain of freely available material than they do on the informational material that is covered by property rights. The Public Domain is not some gummy residue left behind when all the good stuff has been covered by property law. The Public Domain is the place we quarry the building blocks of our culture. It is, in fact, the majority of our culture.
And that’s my problem with the current state of patent laws. But that’s another story. The site is maintained by the European Union’s association COMMUNIA and the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke Law in Durham, NC.
Cynthia Murrell, January 14, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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