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Lawsuit Seeks More Public Domain Works for Internet Archive

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on September 20, 2004 - 3:59am.
San Francisco -- An Internet archivist and film collector have filed a lawsuit hoping to change copyright laws so that "orphaned" copyrighted works, or works that are out of print and not commercially viable but still protected by copyright, would be moved to the "public domain," where they could be used freely, Wired News reported. Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle and film collector Rick Prelinger filed the suit -- Kahle v. Ashcroft -- in March; since then the government has filed a motion to dismiss, and the plaintiffs an opposition to that motion. The plaintiffs want to digitize orphaned copyright works such as films to add to a free online library. "Because of the indiscriminate nature of copyright today, the burden of copyright regulation extends to work whether or not the original author has any need for continuing protection," the Kahle lawsuit reads. "That unnecessary burden blocks the cultivation of our culture and the spread of knowledge." The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California will hear arguments on Oct. 29.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64494,00.html 
http://www.archive.org 

tags: lawsuit | Public Domain | Internet Archive |



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