Peaches Posted June 27, 2009 Report Share Posted June 27, 2009 Copyfraud: Poisoning the public domainthe future of knowledgeBy Charles EicherSpecial report The public domain is the greatest resource in human history: eventually all knowledge will become part of it. Its riches serve all mankind, but it faces a new threat. Vast libraries of public domain works are being plundered by claims of "copyright". It's called copyfraud - and we'll discover how large corporations like Google, Yahoo, and Amazon have structured their businesses to assist it and profit from it.Copyfraud first came to my attention nearly two years ago in my scholarly research. As Google Books began releasing massive numbers of newly scanned public domain books, Japanese Studies scholars excitedly announced their discoveries. I found links to books by one of the first American journalists to arrive in Japan, Lafcadio Hearn. Scans of his books from the 1890s onward - with their eccentric letterpress typography and gold foil stamped leather covers - give us the details of presentation and are the minutiae that launched a thousand dissertations. This is just the sort of material that excites scholars like me; we examine his books to see how the West first came to understand Japan. read more on this topic plus screenshot - theregister - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/06/26/copyfraud/ Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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