R. Anthony Reese has self-archived "What Copyright Owes the Future" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

This Lecture explores the subject of preserving copyrighted works for the future in four steps. First, I look at why preserving creative works is important and valuable. Next, I examine the ways in which copyright law has traditionally encouraged—or not encouraged—the preservation of copyrighted works. Third, I explore how digital technology and computer networks, such as the Internet, pose new challenges for preserving creative works. And finally, I consider briefly how we might rethink and revise copyright law to respond to the challenges of preserving works of authorship for future audiences.

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Clark D. Asay has self-archived "A Case for the Public Domain" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Over the past several decades open license movements have proven highly successful in the software and content worlds. . . . This Article argues that this IP-based approach, while perhaps helpful in the beginning, is no longer necessary and in fact prevents the movements from reaching their full potential. The IP-based approach has this effect by causing significant transaction costs without offsetting benefits, resulting in a tragedy of the anti-commons. The IP-based approach also creates the risk of IP trolls in the future, especially in the copyright sphere. . . . The Article then examines the benefits of a public domain approach and argues that such an approach would reduce the wasteful transaction costs, limit the possibility of IP trolls, still satisfy the purposes of those that contribute materials under open licenses, and better align with the normative tenets of such movements. To conclude, the Article assesses the merits of a "Public Domain Act" that would help address obstacles that currently exist in dedicating materials to the public domain and posits some theoretical implications relating to innovation based on the experiences of the open license movements and the arguments of this Article.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

Randal C. Picker has self-archived "Access and the Public Domain" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

Section I of the paper sketches out the emerging public domain. Section II considers three conceptual questions for structuring use of the public domain focusing on the extent to which the public domain should be viral; on whether we should insist that the public domain be accessed only through the original artifacts embodying it; and on whether private appropriability incentives for distribution of public domain scans match overall social interests. Section III turns to the tools for restricting use of the public domain, to copyright, contract, the DMCA and the CFAA. Each of these matters for access to the public domain and for competition over it. Section IV considers one narrow question regarding the relationship between copyright's deposit requirement and a truly public domain, while the last section briefly concludes the paper.

| Digital Scholarship Overview | Digital Scholarship |

COMMUNIA has released "Contribution to the Definition of a Positive Agenda for the Public Domain: A Policy Paper by COMMUNIA International Association on the Public Domain."

Here's an excerpt:

This policy paper proposes to contribute to defining a positive agenda for the Public Domain. It is grounded on a WIPO study by Professor Sèverine Dusollier, Communia policy recommendations and Communia previous WIPO statements. This work-in-progress document presents policy recommendations and strategies aimed at the trans-national level , namely WIPO CDIP and SCCR. Legal language will be drafted at a later stage.

| Digital Scholarship |

Christopher J. Buccafusco and Paul J. Heald have self-archived "Do Bad Things Happen When Works Enter the Public Domain?: Empirical Tests of Copyright Term Extension" in SSRN.

Here's an excerpt:

The international debate over copyright term extension for existing works turns on the validity of three empirical assertions about what happens to works when they fall into the public domain. Our study of the market for audio books and a related human subjects experiment suggest that all three assertions are suspect. We demonstrate that audio books made from public domain bestsellers (1913-22) are significantly more available than those made from copyrighted bestsellers (1923-32). We also demonstrate that recordings of public domain and copyrighted books are of equal quality.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

Open Book Publishers has released The Digital Public Domain: Foundations for an Open Culture.

Here's an excerpt:

The public domain is the sovereign space of all citizens of the world. Like the air we breathe, it is free for all people to use, without restriction, no rights reserved. Our public ownership of this domain of knowledge should be understood as a fundamental human right to access our shared knowledge, the use of which is not the result of a grant by any specific government.

In this book, the members of Communia not only articulates this positive conception of our public domain, but also seek to make the European public domain actionable. The book defines the public domain of the European nations and studies the environment in which it operates. Most importantly, it recommends a set of actions to build and make use of that domain as an environment of shared intellectual property and multifaceted cultural heritage.

| Transforming Scholarly Publishing through Open Access: A Bibliography| Digital Scholarship |

The Communia has released the Communia Final Report.

Here's an excerpt:

This Public[3] Report is the outcome of the work of the COMMUNIA Network on the Digital Public Domain (hereinafter "COMMUNIA"). This Report was undertaken to (i) review the activities of COMMUNIA; (ii) investigate the state of the digital public domain in Europe; and (iii) recommend policy strategies for enhancing a healthy public domain and making digital content in Europe more accessible and usable.

| Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog | Digital Scholarship |

The Harvard Library has released over 12 million bibliographic records under the CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication license.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

The Harvard Library announced it is making more than 12 million catalog records from Harvard’s 73 libraries publicly available.

The records contain bibliographic information about books, videos, audio recordings, images, manuscripts, maps, and more. The Harvard Library is making these records available in accordance with its Open Metadata Policy and under a Creative Commons 0 (CC0) public domain license. In addition, the Harvard Library announced its open distribution of metadata from its Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) scholarly article repository under a similar CC0 license.

"The Harvard Library is committed to collaboration and open access. We hope this contribution is one of many steps toward sharing the vital cultural knowledge held by libraries with all," said Mary Lee Kennedy, Senior Associate Provost for the Harvard Library.

| Open Access Bibliography: Liberating Scholarly Literature with E-Prints and Open Access Journals: Those wishing to learn more about the open access movement would be well served by turning to Bailey's Open Access Bibliography. . . .This title is a major contribution to the study of the open access movement in general, as well as its emergence in the early twenty-first century. — Mary Aycock, Library Resources and Technical Services 52, no. 3 (2008): 212-213. | Digital Scholarship |

The Nature Publishing Group has launched a linked data platform.

Here's an excerpt from the press release:

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) today is pleased to join the linked data community by opening up access to its publication data via a linked data platform. NPG's Linked Data Platform is available at http://data.nature.com.

The platform includes more than 20 million Resource Description Framework (RDF) statements, including primary metadata for more than 450,000 articles published by NPG since 1869. In this first release, the datasets include basic citation information (title, author, publication date, etc) as well as NPG specific ontologies. These datasets are being released under an open metadata license, Creative Commons Zero (CC0), which permits maximal use/re-use of this data.

| Digital Scholarship's Digital/Print Books | Digital Scholarship |

The Harvard Library will deposit about 200,000 public domain volumes in HathiTrust.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The Harvard Library will deposit approximately 200,000 public domain volumes in HathiTrust, a shared digital repository for published materials. This follows Harvard's first deposit of approximately 53,000 volumes in HathiTrust in 2011.

"The Harvard Library is committed to collaboration and easing access to its materials. Partnerships like this create significant opportunities for research libraries to lead during a period of rapid changes in higher education and scholarship in the digital age, and for researchers to benefit from their initiative" said Mary Lee Kennedy, Harvard's senior associate provost for the Library.

| Digital Curation and Preservation Bibliography 2010 | Digital Scholarship |

In a major defeat for public domain advocacy, the US Supreme Court has ruled against Lawrence Golan and others in Golan v. Holder.

Here is an excerpt from a synopsis of the case from the Legal Information Institute:

Congress enacted Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act in order to comply with the international copyright standards of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Section 514 restores copyright protection to foreign works currently found in the public domain. Lawrence Golan and other performers, educators, and motion picture distributors brought this suit challenging Section 514, arguing that Congress's removal of works from the public domain exceeded its Copyright Clause powers. Golan also argues that Section 514 violates the First Amendment because the law does not serve any important government interests. Attorney General Holder counters that the Copyright Clause does not restrict Congress's authority to remove works from the public domain. He further argues that Section 514 does not violate the First Amendment because the government has a substantial interest in complying with the Berne Convention and protecting American works abroad.

Here's an excerpt from the ruling:

Congress determined that U. S. interests were best served by our full participation in the dominant system of international copyright protection. Those interests include ensuring exemplary compliance with our international obligations, securing greater protection for U. S. authors abroad, and remedying unequal treatment of foreign authors. The judgment §514 expresses lies well within the ken of the political branches. It is our obligation, of course, to determine whether the action Congress took, wise or not, encounters any constitutional shoal. For the reasons stated, we are satisfied it does not. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit is therefore Affirmed.

In a lengthy dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer said:

The fact that, by withdrawing material from the public domain, the statute inhibits an important preexisting flow of information is sufficient, when combined with the other features of the statute that I have discussed, to convince me that the Copyright Clause, interpreted in the light of the First Amendment, does not authorize Congress to enact this statute.

Justice Samuel Alito also dissented.

| Digital Scholarship |

The World Intellectual Property Organization has released Scoping Study on Copyright and Related Rights and the Public Domain.

Here's an excerpt from the announcement:

The scoping study includes an illustrative comparison of national legislations that directly, or indirectly, define the public domain; and a survey of initiatives and tools, which may affect access, use, identification and location of public domain material.

| Digital Scholarship |