cutting libraries while killing the commons

Posted on June 12, 2003 by Lessig

Commons-blog has a nice link to a story about Milwaukee libraries being defunded. Yet at the same time, extensions of copyright terms simply increase the cost of getting access to content. If every librarian signed our Reclaim the Public Domain Petition, then perhaps we could rebuild a public domain that could make the costs of libraries fall.

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5 Responses to cutting libraries while killing the commons

  1. Jesse Andrews says:
    June 12, 2003 at 11:46 am

    Would it be useful to collect “old fashioned” signatures? Do lawmakers give digital petitions the same weight as paper petitions?

  2. Phil Gengler says:
    June 12, 2003 at 12:22 pm

    I would imagine old-fashioned ‘real’ signatures would carry more weight, and I’ve never seen an online petition really accomplish anything, but if nothing else, this shows just how much support an idea like this has.

  3. Ryan Mahoney says:
    June 12, 2003 at 2:27 pm

    I don’t suppose there’s a website out there where librarians like to hang out? Like slashdot for the geeks. If so, maybe somebody could get a post up there.

  5. Pete says:
    June 13, 2003 at 7:53 am

    Librarian.Net would be a good site to get in contact with. The woman who runs it seems very conscious of these issues and would probably be receptive to helping to get the word out.

    One wonders what the costs are for single printings of books and what kind of overhead it would take to get a bindary outfitted to provide public domain works to patrons as needed… At what point is that cost effective and an improvement over the way things are done now?

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