Two members of Congress today introduced legislation they said would ensure the American public's access to the nation's intellectual and artistic heritage.
The Public Domain Enhancement Act would require the owners of copyrighted works -- such as songs, books and software -- to pay a $1 fee to maintain their copyrights once 50 years have transpired from the work's original publication. If owners failed to pay the fee, the work would enter the public domain, and the public would be free to reproduce, republish or alter it.
The legislation is aimed directly at recent changes to copyright law that extended the lifetime of copyrights from 75 to 95 years after the author of a work dies.
As Justice Breyer pointed out in his dissent to the Supreme Court's opinion upholding the extensions, only about 2% of copyrighted works between 55 and 75 years old retain any commercial value. But the law applies to all works, effectively locking up millions of things that should be in the public domain, and are in danger of being forgotten. The Washington Post reports the story here. (Link via Lessig News)