Scan This Book! - New York Times

Scan This Book! - New York Times
Here's a great article talking about what is the likely future of print media (books, magazines) copyright law. The punch line comes at the end, when Kelly suggests that copyright owners owe the world a duty of searchability.

I agree that it seems reasonable to create a web-friendly Copyright 2.0, under which it is legal to scan and copy for search & fair-use retrieval purposes.

A copyright duration of 70 years is outrageous, and far outlasts the duration needed as an incentive for publication of creative works. Congress should change this as well, but the powers that be (e.g. insert-your-publisher-here) won't let that happen.

To quote Kelly, "Search opens up creations. It promotes the civic nature of publishing. Having searchable works is good for culture. It is so good, in fact, that we can now state a new covenant: Copyrights must be counterbalanced by copyduties. In exchange for public protection of a work's copies (what we call copyright), a creator has an obligation to allow that work to be searched. No search, no copyright."