An interview with Brewster Kahle of the Internet Archive. It's interesting to me that the assumption behind the "archivists versus copyright" thrust of argument is that archives must be both public domain and open, and, quite likely, undertaken by not-for-profit enterprise. Why not a for-profit archive? Open for a small fee? I suspect if/when the costs of negotiating with copyright owners fall lower, one will see more such archives; most of the ventures are not-for-profit now because they are premature, and the economics isn't right. One wonders if some of these venturers might do better expending energies in developing licensing forums and mechanisms, before they go about their archiving.

In any case the automatic equation of "out-of-print" works with "works that ought to be in the public domain" is grossly overreaching; I suspect and hope that the analysis is more sophisticated.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 3:27 PM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain

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