On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 01:19:05 +0200, Lars Aronsson wrote:
There are lots of contents that could (and should) be free, but is still under copyright. Some are in the hands of museums and archives, some in publishers, some in government agencies.
Many works are not even under copyright but locked up anyway.
I think it would be a mistake to start pouring money into such institutions, which should instead be forced (by a change of copyright law or national policy) or encouraged to give it away. We'd run out of money much too soon, and we'd build expectations that old collections can bring profits.
That was exactly my first thought, too. This well-intentioned idea has a great potential of being worse than useless by putting our long-term goals further out of reach.
$100 million might be enough to make our lobbying efforts in Brussels and Washington DC more effective for a decade or more. Large scale grass-roots campaigns like the one over software patents in Europe succeed every now and then as a one-time effort, but they are limited in their perseverance against vested interests that have a lot more patience and money.
Unfortunately, lobbying is not as sexy as giving money to free a bunch of pictures or texts. An alternative would be to carefully select and support projects that don't create new, bad incentives. Project Gutenberg might be a candidate.
Roger