Yup. Totally agree. The constant extension of copyright is especially infuriating.
Fear of copyright violation is also stifling. Professionally and on a non-fannish note, I see many, many institutions (I'm an archivist) which hold records of defunct companies, anonymous individuals and other things deposited with them in c1956 by someone who thought the Old Stuff should be preseved. Now they'd like to digitise them, or use them in an exhibition - anything to raise awareness of the interesting and historic things they hold. But because copyright isn't clear (I should stress I'm not talking about records of people who still have a relationship with the records, or of existing companies etc) they can't touch the stuff Just In Case. So all that gets digitised is the records of very dull local authorities, because they still exist and copyright can be established and ceded straightforwardly. And eveyone loses.
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Date: 2009-02-28 09:35 pm (UTC)Fear of copyright violation is also stifling. Professionally and on a non-fannish note, I see many, many institutions (I'm an archivist) which hold records of defunct companies, anonymous individuals and other things deposited with them in c1956 by someone who thought the Old Stuff should be preseved. Now they'd like to digitise them, or use them in an exhibition - anything to raise awareness of the interesting and historic things they hold. But because copyright isn't clear (I should stress I'm not talking about records of people who still have a relationship with the records, or of existing companies etc) they can't touch the stuff Just In Case. So all that gets digitised is the records of very dull local authorities, because they still exist and copyright can be established and ceded straightforwardly. And eveyone loses.