Monday, December 1, 2003

A Modest Proposal: Copyright and Scholarly Journals

I am a reactionary—at least when it comes to copyright. The first copyright law in 1709 provided protection for up to 28 years. In most countries today, copyright extends for 70 years beyond an author's life, which means copyright can extend for more than 150 years! The period of 28 years was a compromise between anarchy (zero) and perpetual monopoly (infinity). It balanced the rights and interests of publishers, authors, and the public. The balance worked.

Modern copyright law seems to work for novels, music, and movies, but it doesn't work well for scholarly journals. Journals record the knowledge of one generation for the next—they are long-term affairs. Recently, scholars discovered that copyright was a major impediment to making the older literature available online because obtaining permission decades after a journal was published was often impossible. And scholars realize that these difficulties will increase as we migrate to new formats in the future. For scholarly journals, copyright protection is an obstacle, not a safeguard.

We cannot change the laws that protect novels, movies, and music for the sake of scholarly journals. Publishers have persuaded both themselves and lawmakers that our present copyright laws provide the right balance for these creative works, and we are unlikely to change their minds. We should look for practical solutions, not ideological jousts.

What's a practical solution? Be reactionary—revert to the older traditions of copyright, without changing the law. We should urge scholars when publishing journal articles to dedicate their work to the public domain after 28 years.1 Until then, authors and publishers control their work as at present (perhaps giving free access much earlier). After 28 years, the work belongs to the world, in keeping with the historical traditions of copyright.

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