ASCAP War On Free Culture Escalates

An anonymous reader writes "After ASCAP declared war on free culture and Creative Commons responded on the incident, the war of words is escalating. Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid has been following this story closely. The EFF responded to the ASCAP letter, saying 'we don't think that ASCAP characterized EFF and its work accurately. We believe that artists should be compensated for their work, and one proposal we have for that is Voluntary Collective Licensing.' The response from the EFF came with a study and a letter written by one irate ASCAP member who donated to the EFF and to Public Knowledge as a result of the ASCAP letter. Public Knowledge also responded to the letter, saying, 'It's obvious that the characterization of Public Knowledge is false. Public Knowledge advocates for balanced copyright and an open Internet the empowers creators and the public. What we oppose are overreaching policies proposed by large corporate copyright holders that punish lawful users of technology and copyrighted works.' Now the National Music Publishers Association has weighed in to support ASCAP, saying that organizations like Public Knowledge and the EFF 'have an extremist radical anti-copyright agenda,' according to a transcript of a speech posted on Billboard. Public Knowledge has dismissed those allegations, saying 'anybody who has spent more than five minutes on our website or talking to our staff knows that these things are not true.'"

Comments

Ha.

[bbqsrc]

It gives me great pleasure when these things escalate, because the more they escalate, the higher chance the media may accidentally make these arguments mainstream, and people might actually wake up and notice how flawed the system currently is.

Re:Ha.

[Seriousity]

Indeed, the sheer audacity of the industry giants behaviour has increased over the years and is becoming more and more visible.

If only we had better coverage of the issue offline. The mainstream media is wroth to anger their corporate overlords.
But millions of people are discovering the war on freedom through websites online...
Hence the need for an INTERNET KILL SWITCH!

Honestly, it's nearing the point where we should physically confront these politicians and smack them upside the head. The farcical pretense of democracy has been stretched so damn far that it might just tear down the middle.

Re:Ha.

[dyingtolive]

I shouldn't feed the trolls, but have you tried talking to a normal person about the conspiracy against them? If so, were they an American? They listen to you talk for about five minutes and then the eyes roll back into their sockets and if you're really lucky they continue to sit there pretending to listen to you even though they're just praying for something, anything to actually make you stop going on and on, especially since American Idol comes on in a half hour and all they want to do is run down to McDonalds to pick up a 50 piece McNugget meal before it comes on so they don't have to miss any of it. An individual can't make a difference in this country until they get on the big glowy box the people here venerate like a god. America the Proud, indeed.

Re:Ha.

[commodore64_love]

"Ya know that new CD you bought? ASCAP and RIAA won't let you copy it to your iPod."

"What?!?!?"

"That's right. They expect you to buy the song twice - once on CD and again for your iPod and then a third time for your computer. It's nuts." - That's how you get people to pay attention.

Re:Ha.

[Lumpy]

Too mild.

"you know that New CD you bought? ASCAP and RIAA think that you are a stinking dirty THIEF scumbag if you put it on your ipod."

"They also think you are a complete douchebag that needs to go to jail and be raped if you loan the CD to someone..."

That is the approach you need to take, it get's attention far more than "they dont want to let you"

Re:Ha.

[sammyF70]

too optimistic.

The way this generally goes is :

"you know that New CD you bought? ASCAP and RIAA think that you are a stinking dirty THIEF scumbag if you put it on your ipod." "hmm ... don't care really. I didn't buy a CD, I have it in iTune. by the way, do you have an idea how I could copy the track to my non-apple mp3 player?" "that's what I'm telling you. they won't let you do it" "yeah yeah ... [ rolls eyes ] ... nothing to do with me. I just want to copy it to my mp3 player. Anyway" double-face-palm

Face it : most people don't care a bit about copyright issues or changes to the system which might affect them. Sometimes I wonder whether it's because they just don't actually understand the concept. Copying music, movies or games isn't something people give tyo thoughts about. If it works, then great. if it doesn't they'll just bugger any halfway knowledgeable person they know until they can do it, without thinking twice about any legal implication. They just assume that ~something was broken~ and look for a fix. (incidentally, they are right : the copyright system is broken). Many never heard of the RIAA, MPAA and any attempt to explain what ACTA is and how it might be bad for them is met with a sardonic grin and some smartass remark about conspiracy theories

Another standard line I often hear? "hey... do you know where I can download free music?" "try jamendo.com or archive.org. Some very nice stuff there. Archive even has classic movies and tv-shows!" "hmm ... but nobody I ever heard about, so it sucks. I meant real music!" "nope, sorry. you'll have to pay for it and it's just better known, but not necessarily better. You could try torrents of course, but it's illegal" [their eyes go all glazy just before the mention of illegality. basically they didn't even register the word] "oh ... and how does it work?"

Re:Ha.

[BobMcD]

This. My own wife was one of the rolleyes crowd right up until the WalMart store cancelled all the tracks she had purchased. THEN the lightbulb came on, and she got it. However, she only now checks that they are mp3's, so you couldn't necessarily call her a copyleft champion or anything.

Re:Ha.

[geekd]

Do you know music artists? I am one, and I know a lot of them. I don't know any who think they "automatically deserve to be paid for producing their music". Most are thrilled when they can make a living from their music, but none expect to. Most musicians I know make WAY more money from shows and t-shirt sales than from CD or MP3 sales.

In fact, many, like myself, give the music away for free (I license it under the Creative Commons) in order to get more fans, so to have more people at shows and sell more merch.

Get my music for free at http://theexperiments.com/

Making music is a labor of love, and anyone who does it expecting to get rich is an idiot.

Personally, I do have a radical agenda

[Lord Bitman]

I think that copyright should exist to promote the creation of content. Once the money involved in creating that content has been paid, copyright should automatically expire.

This isn't just about money. It's gotten to the point where I can't go a month without hearing someone mention something they'd like to do, or would like to track down, or would like to show others, but can't because of short-sighted copyright laws. How many books, movies, TV-shows, radio plays, and other content, is irretrievably lost for all time, not because of a lack of technology or willingness required to preserve it, but because of some insane and nonsensical copyright laws which prevent archival of content whose monetary incentive was long-since paid? This must end. Culture is dying.

Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda

[betterunixthanunix]

Once the money involved in creating that content has been paid, copyright should automatically expire.

It sounds to me like you are unfamiliar with Hollywood Accounting. Have you ever wondered how the MPAA can claim that the companies it represents keep losing money, yet somehow those companies never seem to go out of business? The movie studios never post profits, because they deliberately spend money on nonexistence services -- they have contracts with shell companies that simply hold their money and use it to fund the next movie. The purpose here is to cheat actors out of their fair share of the profits. Any copyright system that maintained monopolies on works up to the break even point would only result in even more widespread use of these tactics.

Really, copyright terms should be shortened, reined back to 20 years, maybe even less. This would be a compromise that helps establish a strong public domain without eradicating copyrights entirely. Of course, that will never happen, since the copyright lobbyists have more power in congress than the rest of the population...

Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda

[mcgrew]

Art, like science, is built on what has come before. Nothing is created in a vacuum; culture feeds on itself. If the Grimm Brothers' work had still been under copyright at the time, most early Disney cartoon could not have been made. This journal is a violation of copyright, for example, but it shouldn't be; the copied part is 35 years old. Copyrights should be short so the work can pass into the public domain, like they are supposed to.

ASCAP and their ilk are against fair use and the public domain. Who's the radical extremist here?

Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda

[Yvanhoe]

Sorry, I made an English mistake. I didn't mead edited, I meant published. Most books ever written are not published anymore and can't be bought anywhere anymore. Ok, here is one quickly-found source : http://bookstatistics.com/sites/para/resources/statistics.cfm
That states that in Canada there are more original titles published every year than reprints. Apart from having a number of titles doubling every year, the only explanation for that is that some (most in fact) books go into oblivion after their first print (I mean, is there a single person claiming that the majority of books are reprinted several times ?)
It happened to me several time to pick old books on garage sales, and when liking it, looking for books of the same author. When the book is 50+ years old, it is incredibely difficult ! There is one author that I liken to Saint-Exupery, but with more humor, that is completely unknown and unpublished as of today. Thanks to internet, it is now possible to find used copies, but for how long ? The one I have is losing its yellow pages.
Even famous people like Henri Laborit have some of their works unfindable today. (I am willing to pay twice the normal price if you find me the book "La Nouvelle Grille"). And don't get me started on comic books and roleplaying games (Amber, Circus, Bitume, Starwars D6, very good games out of print for other reasons than lack of success). Current copyright laws may allow some authors make a living, but they are also erasing a volume of culture that should qualify as "vandalism against humanity". That is something that is important to correct.

Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda

[Neil_Brown]

Most books are not edited anymore, but copying them instead of letting the content die is forbidden.

I too did not understand the editing point. However, if one replaces "edited" with "published", then it makes more sense - only a fraction of the literature that has even been written is still published or sold - there are many, many works which one can no longer buy, otherwise than finding a copy in a second hand bookshop or the like.

However, despite these works not being available on the market (i.e. the knowledge within the works cannot be further disseminated to society), it remains an infringement of copyright to copy them - copying them, making their otherwise-unavailable content available once again, is forbidden, in favour of the letting the work, and its knowledge, die away (at least until the term of protection of copyright expires).

I suppose that some would look to promote a claim of "moral rights" - that the author should be permitted to allow the book to sit, unavailable, after a limited print run, although I struggle somewhat with this, if protection really is granted for the advancement of learning, society and knowledge. Were the law to provide proceeds of resale to authors, then, I could understand this more (i.e. that, by maintaining artificial scarcity, the price of the few copies available is artificially elevated above that which would be supported in a market in which the number of copies was not restricted, with the author receiving part of each onwards sale), but, it does not - otherwise than a feeling of control, does an author really benefit, if he has no plan to reissue the work? (I appreciate that this is what some do- in particular, media companies which periodically release, then withdraw, their works, so that, when re-released, a new generation buys them, having previously been unable to do so.)

(I do not necessarily support a system based on this practice, but merely could understand the claim against copying unavailable works more if it were the case.)

Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda

[Yvanhoe]

The demand did not die, the demand went below the threshold of rentability for published book. Digital copies however, cost close to nothing in comparison. Making it illegal to keep and exchange them is really causing these things to disappear. Most of the people have an unused space on their disks that could store the totality of published text in the first half of the 20th century. Space is really cheap, much cheaper than publishing a book.

Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda

[Neil_Brown]

Seriously, where the hell do people get this idea of creative artists sitting on their work like evil geniuses, expressly to prevent somebody else from using it? That's not the way it works. Hell, I challenge you to name one author who has done it, just one.

I'm sure it's not the general rule at all - I talk to authors regularly (mainly to say thank you for books I enjoy, but also as part of research), and I have yet to come across any who would sit on a work, as you suggest, to prevent publication. Disney, as you say, sounds like the exception - but a powerful one - although, since I have only spoken with a small sample of authors, I could not be sure that there were not more. That being said, many authors are keen to exploit the monopoly of control granted by copyright - relatively few authors dedicate their latest book to the public domain.

But, the system, if not the authors, does not support the making available of books once the initial rush has died down - as you say, it is a matter of economics as to what gets published. However, if it is no longer economic to publish, then the author no longer makes any money from sales (since the books are not available to buy new, once stocks are depleted), and so it strikes me that there is very little reason to maintain a restriction over the book.

However, perhaps the author is not the person capable of making the decision - that the decision for this kind of release is reserved to the publisher, either under the agreement to publish, or else by assignment of the copyright to the publisher. Perhaps if the author were to retain the rights to reissue the work under his own terms once publication ceases, we would have a far healthier system of older books and works. Or, better still, divest the work to the public domain once the book is no longer published, although this is likely to raise the not-inconsiderable hackles of those who do want to use control as a mechanism for raising price / sustainability. The strength of opposition to Google Books suggest that at least some publishers and/or authors are against making texts available.

Re:Personally, I do have a radical agenda

[betterunixthanunix]

Please do not say all companies cheat or use shells

I did not say all companies cheat or use shells. I said that major movie studios do, because they do. The author of Forrest Gump the novel was entitled to a share of the profits from Forrest Gump the movie. He should have been given a check for a very large sum of money, given the overwhelming commercial success of the movie, but he was never paid a dime -- the profits were converted into a net loss by the movie studio, by using the sorts of tactics I described. This is not the sort of business practice that "makes the world go round," it is deliberately reporting a loss despite the fact that a profit was turned, in order to deny someone the money they were legally entitled to under the current copyright system.

These same companies, of course, point to the suffering of the people they cheat whenever the issue of file sharing comes up.

wrong product and/or wrong line of work

[Anonymous Coward]

if you want to sell air, don't bother the politicians, the law makers, and law enforcement with your "intellectual property" security concerns.

the politicians are supposed to serve the people. the greater good. not the good of companies with ideas that are akin to selling me a license to breath the air in my own house.

if you can't create works that you or a service provider can't secure, then you need to find another product to sell, or job to do.

I'd love to be paid every time someone used the word "yeppers". and with enough money and attorneys and influence in the district of columbia, I could probably get it to pass.

Then I'd start suing all the john does...

Re:wrong product and/or wrong line of work

[Seriousity]

The line between the government and the corporation has been blurred.

In fact, every time something like this happens we scramble to find that line, and it's nowhere to be found.
And some of us can scarcely remember what it looked like.

What we have now is a global Corporatocracy, the compromise between government and corporation.
What have the compromised? Our rights.

If we don't fight ACTA, our grandchildren will have no idea that a line ever existed at all.

Extremism

[TheSpoom]

...is their word to associate us with terrorists in the public's mind.

Re:ASCAP is

[Moryath]

No, it's easier than that.

AS = Ass.
CAP = Hat.

They're just a bunch of asshats. I don't think there is an actual composer or author left in the group; ASCAP years ago drove anyone with any common sense into either individual publishing and licensing, or the arms of rival groups.

I mean seriously. These are the same group of dickfaces who tried to sue 5-year-olds for singing songs at summer camp. No joke.

Radical extremists?

[mcgrew]

It looks to me like it's the established music (and film as well) industry whose position on copyright is radical and extreme.

ASCAP itself is an incredibly mafia-like entity. I've known bartenders who have been shaken down by ASCAP thugs for fees that they clearly didn't owe, as bands that performed in those bars played their own, non-ASCAP compositions. The bar owners soon find out that the ASCAP fees are far cheaper than the legal fees.

And these lying, theiving sociopaths have the gall to say that the EFF is radical and extreme? I'd laugh if it weren't so pathetic. ASCAP execs belong in prison for their extortion of bar owners (and likely other establishments).

Re:Radical extremists?

[walterbyrd]

Have to agree. Since when is it considered illegal for me to give away my own content, if I chose to do so? How is that forcing anybody else to give away content? How is that stealing anything?

Re:Radical extremists?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

It looks to me like it's the established music (and film as well) industry whose position on copyright is radical and extreme.

Moreover, their own extreme position is the real motivator behind their opinion of the opposite side of the debate. It's similar to debates in the culture wars or similar debates where one side accuses the other of having an "agenda" when in reality it is they who have ulterior motives beyond the matters at hand.

Essentially what is going on here is that the copyright industry is trying to label those in favour of reform as extremists in an effort to shut them out. It's actually surprising that its taken them this long to reach this strategy. As history has shown, such tactics work very well--in the US in particular--where you can turn a debate completely on its head by proclaiming the exact opposite of what's going on. The best example of this is: "The Media has a Liberal Bias."

The ultimate objective here is to make copyleft illegal and ensure that copyright is legally the only game in town. It's not implausible that ASCAP et al may succeed in this endeavor.

Re:Radical extremists?

[ScrewMaster]

Since when is it considered illegal for me to give away my own content, if I chose to do so?

It isn't. ASCAP's position is that it should be.

That's very true. ASCAP (and the RIAA, and all other such abominations) feel that they are entitled to a piece of every sale or performance of every copyrighted work. Doesn't matter if they have no rights to such works. Doesn't even matter if the work is under an expired copyright, is public domain, or was released under some other terms. So far as they're concerned, we owe them for the right to "consume" creative material, whatever the source because, well, we just do that's all. Bloodsuckers, all of them.

And they call Public Knowledge and the EFF "extreme"?

Their level of hypocrisy is just stunning, really, it is.

Helpful Links

[Anonymous Coward]

Support the EFF: http://www.eff.org/helpout
Support Creative Commons: https://support.creativecommons.org/

Too late.

[AntEater]

'anybody who has spent more than 5 minutes on our website or talking to our staff knows that these things are not true.'

That, in a nutshell, is why the public in general will ever know what is true. We've pretty much reduced our collective thinking to ingesting media prepared "sound bites" and have no motivation to think beyond that point. I heard a politician or campaign manager once summarize the problem with the statement: "if you're explaining, you've lost" (or something to that effect.

Buffer Copies?

[Dogun]

From the speech, item #7 on the list of reasons they hate the EFF et. alia: 'They favor the elimination of the songwriter and publisher rights for server, cache and buffer copies.'

I am actually rather shocked that ANYONE can rationalize royalty fees for 'server, buffer, and cache' copies of content. This is content that people are not seeing or hearing. These are invisible pink unicorn copies.

David Bollier

[Neil_Brown]

I mean seriously. These are the same group of dickfaces who tried to sue 5-year-olds for singing songs at summer camp. [steinski.com] No joke.

For those who are not going to click the link, the material referenced there is from David Bollier's book "Brand Name Bullies".

That is still on my bookshelf, but I can highly recommend Bollier's work generally, as a promotion of the concept of a "commons" - "Silent Theft" being a prime example, or, for those who prefer shorter reading matter, Bollier's paper, which gave rise to the book, "Public Assets, Private Profits".

(As a lawyer with a keen interest in this area, I'm a big fan of David's work, and his easy-to-access writing style.)

Irrelevant.

[inode_buddha]

These ASS-CAPS have been largely irrelevant for a long time, at least for me. The problem as I see it, is that copyright is all about money for them - it's not about art anymore. In order to be fair, they should re-publish their entire back-catalogs clear back to World War One, on CD's for $8 each. Basically if they're going to lock up copyright for that long, then they should be required to publish and sell for an equal lenghth of time, else they should STFU. I have *hundreds* of record albums recorded back in the 1950's and 1960's that you won't find anymore, and I wouldn't mind getting them on CD's from the original labels. If the labels cry that this would cost them too much, then I guess that shows a lot about them, and what they're really after. If they're not making anything off a recording anymore, then they should relinquish the copyright on it.

Beat 'em at their own game

[Anita Coney]

Copyrights are government granted monopolies contrary to the free market. That should be the argument against ASCAP's belief that anyone who disagrees with them are radical anti-copyright extremists.

The EFF should be hammering it: Why does the copyright industry need increased government handouts and draconian government monopolies to survive? Let the free market sort it out. If they can't survive in a free market without massive government help and an erosion of our rights, so be it.

Re:The EFF is just a tool of the hardware guys

[king neckbeard]

It makes sense once you're paid enough to think it makes sense.

John Perry Barlow

[bsDaemon]

Some of the older Slashdotters here may remember, but one of the founding members of the EFF was John Perry Barlow, who is intimately associated with the Grateful Dead, having collaborated as a lyricist, primarily as a partner with Bob Weir (Garcia tended to collaborate with a poet named Robert Hunter). The reason this is relevant is because the Dead is perhaps one of the best examples of the model that "free culture" advocates promote. The band pretty much encouraged bootlegging of concerts, sometimes even letting the occasional fan tap into the mixing board. There are millions of bootlegged recordings available, yet they still sell tonnes of records. More importantly, they were a huge concert draw and one of the biggest touring acts prior to Garcia's death. The spin-off bands with the remaining members, such as Dark Star and Rat Dog continue to go pretty strong, as do bands who were culturally influenced by them, and not just musically influenced, such as Phish.

While EFF is probably more famous around here for providing defense funds for MOD hackers in the late 80s and early 90s, outting NSA wiretapping programs, and stuff like that I think it really is kind of important to remember that from their founding, they were probably the most qualified organization to take a stand on this particular issue.

Re:John Perry Barlow

[bsDaemon]

Yes, and that's why Metallica are sell-outs and their music has been all down hill since they kicked out Dave Mustaine

Going About This Wrong

[PantherX]

Typical. Instead of just defining what copyleft is and isn't we get into a dickering match with people that have more money and resources. Let's get to the point already. In small bites so your grandma can understand in less than 2 minutes.

Here's a start, under typical creative commons copyleft:

Copyright - a way to make sure nobody plagiarizes your material, so you get credit for your work, usually with a motive to make profit.

Copyleft - a way to make sure nobody plagiarizes your material, so you get credit for your work, with little regard to how that material is used, copied, improved, changed, etc.

The main difference being copyright can be used in a Daffy Duck method. "MINE! MINE! MINE!" and copyleft is generally a "Hey, if you want to use this to do something else with, go ahead. Just make sure I get credit."

Flame on.

Why won't ASCAP or BMI people show themselves?

[Wansu]

I'm a musician, one of the people ASCAP claims to be helping. I don't feel helped. ASCAP and BMI shakedown establishments who hire live music. Either they pay this extortion or no cover tunes can be played there. If you post your rendition of a cover tune online to promote your fledgling local band, you may be sued or extorted. Sure makes it more difficult to get a band off the ground.

I despise these sons of bitches and I'm sure I'm not alone. I also think ASCAP and BMI people are aware that their policies and activities make them unpopular. I've never seen or heard anyone who identifies themselves with ASCAP. I understand why.

Re:Why won't ASCAP or BMI people show themselves?

[NekSnappa]

This is exactly the problem. If you're an ASCAP member, but aren't getting air time on the radio you'll see little to nothing from them. ASCAP shakes down every establishment that has live music for a license fee to make sure that their members get paid for "your use of their material to enhance your business."

But if you're a member with a local following, playing your own stuff in a venue that has paid up. You won't see any money from them because your not being broadcast, or selling a significant number of CD's or downloads from the legal channels. As that is how they determine the distribution of the money from these fees.

Welcome to the USA

[betterunixthanunix]

Hi, I see you are new here. Some basics:

1. Citizens are supposed to vote for politicians that represent them; however, those citizens rarely take more than 30 seconds to look at what those politicians are actually doing, and less than half of those citizens even bother voting
2. The two dominant political parties serve the interests of corporations. One of those parties is up front about it, the other pretends to serve the interests of the majority of the citizens while really pandering to corporations
3. Corporations send people to Congress to represent their interests, ensuring that even those politicians who are considering representing the interests of the average citizen will have a nonstop stream of communication with corporations; most citizens do not bother contacting their representatives (many are not even sure who represents them)
4. Anyone who dares question this system is immediately labeled as a "socialist," which is something you are supposed to be terrified of; most Americans cannot actually define what socialism is, but they "know" it is a bad thing
5. You do have a right to protest all of this; however, the government will tell you where to hold your protest, and if you try to hold it somewhere where it will be more effective (say, in front of a major stock exchange, instead of the park 3 miles away where nobody will notice), you will be arrested because you did not exercise your rights the way you were told to -- after all, we can't have protests that disrupt anything!

While you are here, do try to follow all our laws. Unfortunately, there are so many of them, that nobody is even sure what the exact number of those laws are, and most people wind up breaking them anyway, but you should at least try to follow them.

Re:naah, EFF is not extremist enough

[dkleinsc]

Calling something "extremist" is an attempt to slide the Overton Window away from that position.

A silly example of how this works:
Party A: This bill proposes that we kill 10 puppies a day, just for the fun of it!
Party B: That's horrible! Why would you ever do such a thing?
Party A: Ok, ok, we'll compromise - how about only 5 a day?
Party B: In the interests of bipartisanship, we'll go along with that.

Orphan works are a major problem

[langelgjm]

You claim that shortening copyright would have no impact on the availability of (many) books because there is no demand for them in the first place.

You then support your claim that there is no demand for them by claiming, presumably, that the cost of a limited print run would be so low that were there any demand, it could profitably be met.

I don't really buy this. Isn't the entire problem with thousands and thousands of orphaned works that the copyright holder can't even be easily identified? So that even if there is demand, and the costs of a limited print run are small enough that I decide it would be profitable to do it, I can't find the copyright holder (who may be dead, have gone out of business, or simply forgotten or lost the records pertaining to the copyright).

There are a huge number of books that are out of print but still under copyright. Wasn't one of the benefits of the Google Books scanning project to make these widely available at essentially no cost to interested readers? I could turn your argument around and say, look, if the copyright holders weren't exploiting their copyright and selling the book in the first place, clearly they didn't think it was worthwhile to do so, so what's the harm in Google scanning it and making it available?

Furthermore, there are other reasons to have access to the text of old books than just for passing interest or pleasure of reading them. Lots of scholars would love to have full-text search capability of old, out-of-print works, if only for statistical analysis. It doesn't make sense to do this with limited print runs, and it would be prohibitively expensive. Just scanning everything, OCR, and archival makes much more sense.

On the issue of film preservation, a letter from the National Film Preservation Foundation discusses the problem of orphan works again:

"In an environment of scare resources... Copyright status becomes part of the preservation decision-making process... I believe that important parts of America's film heritage will become lost to educators and the general public unless some simpler, more structured and cost-effective system can be developed for ascertaining the rights status of orphan works." (source)

If copyright were shorter, there would be fewer orphan works, and at least according to that group, more preservation and dissemination of cultural material.