[14582] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
A Byte About Eldred v Ashcroft
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Hart)
Fri Nov 22 20:16:26 2002
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2002 14:05:26 -0500
From: Michael Hart <hart@BERYL.ILS.UNC.EDU>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-to: "Michael S. Hart" <hart@pobox.com>
Message-id: <Pine.GSO.4.44.0211211401380.9526-100000@beryl>
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If the New York Times' estimates of 7 years for information doubling
may be considered at all correct, then this is what will happen in a
United States under the new copyright law, EVEN IF we considered 100
percent of current information now be entered into the Public Domain
as an incentive to let this law stand:
0 years 1/1 of today's information in the Public Domain 100% !!!
7 years 1/2 of today's information in the Public Domain 50%
14 years 1/4 of today's information in the Public Domain 25%
21 years 1/8 of today's information in the Public Domain 12.5%
28 years 1/16 of today's information in the Public Domain 6.25%
35 years 1/32 of today's information in the Public Domain 3.125%
42 years 1/64 of today's information in the Public Domain 1.5625%
49 years 1/128 of today's information in the Public Domain 0.78125%
56 years 1/256 of today's information in the Public Domain 0.390625%
63 years 1/512 of today's information in the Public Domain 0.1953125%
70 years 1/1024 of today's information in the Public Domain 0.09765625%
77 years 1/2048 of today's information in the Public Domain 0.048828125%
84 years 1/4096 of today's information in the Public Domain 0.0244140625%
91 years 1/8192 of today's information in the Public Domain 0.01220703125%
98 years 1/16384 of today's information in the Public Domain 0.006103515625%
Plus a small fraction if any of this year's copyrights are allowed to expire.
Obviously the goal is to have virtually no public domain left at all. . . .
Of course, there are people who will try to make this very NOT obvious!
Michael S. Hart
<hart@pobox.com>
Project Gutenberg
Principal Instigator
"*Internet User ~#100*"
