Slashdot Mirror
Public-Domain Bookmobile Hits the Road
At Belle Haven Elementary School in Palo Alto, right about... *now*, the
Internet Archive Bookmobile
is starting its ten-day, cross-country trip to the Supreme Court. They're putting the hammer down
(itinerary)
(blog)
to make it to Ohio for the Bookmobile Conference.
Then they'll drive into Washington, D.C. on Oct. 8, the day before the nine Justices hear the
copyright-extension
case
Eldred v. Ashcroft.
The contraption is a Ford Aerostar with decals, satellite dish, wireless LAN, laptops... and a printer and binder to do on-demand printing of any of the thousands of public domain books on the internet. (The webpage says 20,000 but the decals claim 1,000,000... maybe they have 50 fonts :)
Update: 10/01 01:33 GMT by T : Nick Arnett writes "The piece about Belle Haven School's bookmobile put the school in Palo Alto. It's not; it's across the freeway, in a far less wealthy and privileged neighborhood, where access to technology is much less common than in Palo Alto. (I'm on the board of Plugged In, a community technology center in the same area as Belle Haven.)"
From what I've heard, this will be the future of *all* printing. With the exception of perennial winners like Stephen King, authors will now have their works digitized. Then people interested in reading their books will go to a printing center where an exact copy of that book can be printed.
The benefits, of course, is that the number of copies printed matches exactly the number of copies purchased. The downside is that many people use hands-on browsing to find books they want, which won't be possible when the books are in digital format.
In regards to this specific campaign, I think that it's hopeful that the Supreme court is making a decision here, because I think they tend to be pretty good about decisions in these areas. It's pretty clear from a legal standpoint what the decision should be. The primary purpose of the constitution is to protect our constitutional rights. This law restricts our rights and extends copyright protections to far beyond what their original limitations were. I *don't* think that the bookmobile will have much effect on the Court, but hopefully it will make some of our citizens more aware of just how many new ways corporations are seeking to screw us.
So, here's hoping. *crosses fingers*
Karma: Chevy Kavalierma.
If you click on that image, you get a close up. At that level, you can see the word "soon" in parentheses.
Also, if look to their menu at the top of the page, and follow the Million Book Project link, they mention how they're hoping to achieve one million books (mua ha ha) by 2005.
I think you're missing the point here - most of the problem doesn't involve copyrights held by WRITERS, but by copyrights held by corporations and heirs long long after the original author is dead. (But if you have some plan to take the money with you I guess more power to you...)
A reasonable system would give rights for a reasonable period after the authors' death (10-20 years?) and not just extend things again and again so that books not in print never see the light of day again.
Look at it this way - as a writer, if you are not successful enough to have something in print when you die - it may well be nobody gets the chance to read your works ever again. People will be unable to make a copy of the work since no publisher will be willing to publish it - and your creative works will just be completely forgotten. All because of a few works where the copyright is held by corporations who wish to extend their hold over the property in perpetuity.
*cough disney cough*