Thread by @jaredcrubin

I just remembered that 2018 is a big year for U.S. copyright law so I’m going to indulge with a thread.

Why is it a big year for copyright law? It is the first year *in twenty freaking years* that works will enter the public domain.

THREAD...

How does this affect you?

Have you ever tried to read a book on Google Books only to be cut off after reading a few pages? That’s because the book *might* be under copyright. This is true for *any* book published since 1923.

This is not ideal for 2 reasons:

1) over 99% of works copyrighted in 1923 have commercial value approaching $0

2) even for those that have value, nobody was writing in 1923 w/ the 2018 value of their work in mind. That is, protection today did not increase production back then

The point of copyright—as laid out in the U.S. Constitution—is to “promote the progress of science and useful arts” by giving *temporary* monopolies to producers. Enough to encourage production, but not to stifle possible use down the road.

Here’s the thing though. Copyright protection was not always so long (it is currently author’s life plus 70 years!!!). It was originally 14 years + a renewal term of 14 years. So most works were in the public domain after 14 years and the rest after 28.

Mostly as a result of lobbying in the 20th century, the copyright term was extended multiple times. The worst (IMO) was the 1998 “Sonny Bono” Act (aka Mickey Mouse Act), which *retroactively* granted 20 years of copyright protection to all works under copyright.

This is why 2018 is the first year in 20 years that some books will enter the public domain.

But just how many books have been kept out of the public domain by these copyright extensions??? ... and as a result are not free to read, cite, etc. on Google (who, for fear of being sued, does not to my knowledge post the full version of *any* book published since 1923)

This was the question Paul David and I attempted to answer in my first ever published article in 2008

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…

We found that, since 1962 alone, various copyright extension acts will have kept over 3.5 million books out of the public domain by 2027

This is a huge number! Most of these works have 0 commercial value, although the total consumer surplus (if made free on Google, which has already scanned the books and made snippets available) is immense!

On the positive side, unless copyright terms are extended again, the next few years will see works by Woolf, Wharton, Fitzgerald, Wodehouse, Cather, Wells, Huxley, Hemingway, Christie, Conrad & many more enter the public domain!
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