Hi. I'm not a lawyer or anything, so it isn't my line of work. Actually,
I'm unemployed. It is both of the other two I think. Part of it is
annoyance with the system as you put it. Part is also curiosity. PG over
the years has done a good job of educating people about how absurd the
copyright laws have become. PG was founded in 1971 so they have seen the
law change over the years. I guess most of it is curiosity. I've always
liked books and I couldn't understand why there was so little for the
blind. Yes, there is NLS, but even that is relatively small considering
how many millions of books there are. Then I went online and discovered
PG. I can remember a few times that I needed a book for high school. They
would wait until the day before the class would start reading before they
bothered to tell me that I needed to find a copy. Quite a few times PG
came to the rescue. Then I wondered why they had nothing after about 1920
or so. That's when I really took an interest in copyright law. Every book
from PG says in the header that it is public domain. After reading enough
of those, I started wondering what the big deal was. Most recently, I
joined the PG volunteer list and have read a few discussions on US and
international laws. Also, when BBSs were still popular back in about 1993,
I found a FAQ on copyright law which explained most of the basics and
accounts for most of what I know and have learned.
At 06:22 PM 3/15/2005 -0800, you wrote:
This is very interesting, Tony, and I thank you for providing the information.
I'm curious -- how do you happen to know all this? Is your line of work related or is it curiousity? Or annoyance at the system (smile)?
