Moving pictures: Without
copyright term extensions, old films wouldn't get distributed, argues
the entertainment industry. 'Indiscriminate
exploitation' by public domain copyists would reduce the flow of
cash to Big Media and hence the motivation Big Media needs to 'publish' films. [CS Monitor].
Intellectual property lawyers Lawrence Lessig and Jason Schultz say
that's so much baloney. Digging around the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), Schultz
finds that out of the 37,000 or so movies released between 1927 and
1946, only 2,480, 6.8%, are commercially available. [Lessig
Blog].
So, why not place the whole lot in the public domain and see what
happens?
