[11774] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
Re: Will We Lose 1 Million Books Today?? (fwd)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael S. Hart)
Mon Oct 27 20:10:08 1997
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 16:50:19 -0600
From: "Michael S. Hart" <hart@prairienet.org>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I was asked to prepare a shorter item on this, which you can use
to point to the full articles which will shortly be posted at:
promo.net
*
Now Is The Time!
We have been warning you for some time that a million books
would be kept under copyright when they should have gone to
the Public Domain under the provisions of the copyright law
under which they were copyrighted.
This is a breach of the copyright contract between a public
and the government purporting to be supporting the "general
welfare" of that public.
Governments SAY they promote literacy and education for the
masses, but these bills would remove a million books from a
quarter of a billion people, in the US alone.
That is a total of a quarter of a quadrillion books that it
will be illegal to make. Even if you value a lifetime book
access to each of these books at only a penny, the loss for
the US public is $2,500,000,000,000 [$2.5 Quadrillion].
This HAS been done before, and the result has been literacy
rates and SAT scores plummeting over the past 20-30 years.
These bills HAVE been stopped before. . .but they are on an
express "fast track" this time to "spring this legislation"
upon us before we have a chance to react.
You can contact your congresspeople as follows:
Try the congressional email service:
Clickable Email addresses @ Congress
http://webcom.com/~leavitt/cong.html
zip code +4 gets your congressperson
Remember, 1 phone call = 10 letters:
and one letter equals ten emails!!!!
Thanks!!
Michael S. Hart
[hart@pobox.com]
Project Gutenberg
Executive Director
Internet User ~#100
