scholarly journals What Happens When Books Enter the Public Domain? Testing Copyright’s Underuse Hypothesis across Australia, New Zealand, The United States and Canada

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Flynn ◽  
Rebecca Giblin ◽  
François Petitjean
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Public ◽  
Widespread Access ◽  
Access To Knowledge

A key justification for copyright term extension has been that exclusive rights encourage publishers to make older works available (and that, without them, works will be ‘underused’). We empirically test this hypothesis by investigating the availability of ebooks to public libraries across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. We find that titles are actually less available where they are under copyright, that competition apparently does not deter commercial publishers from investing in older works, and that the existence of exclusive rights is not enough to trigger investment in works with low commercial demand. Further, works are priced much higher when under copyright than when in the public domain. In sum, simply extending copyrights results in higher prices and worse access. We argue that nations should explore alternative ways of allocating copyrights to better achieve copyright’s fundamental aims of rewarding authors and promoting widespread access to knowledge and culture.

scholarly journals What Happens When Books Enter the Public Domain? Testing Copyright’s Underuse Hypothesis Across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacob Flynn ◽  
Rebecca Giblin ◽  
Francois Petitjean
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Us ◽  
Widespread Access ◽  
Analyse Comparative ◽  
Access To Knowledge

The United States (‘US’) extended most copyright terms by 20 years in 1998, and has since exported that extension via ‘free trade’ agreements to countries including Australia and Canada. A key justification for the longer term was the claim that exclusive rights are necessary to encourage publishers to invest in making older works available — and that, unless such rights were granted, they would go underused. This study empirically tests this ‘underuse hypothesis’ by investigating the relative availability of ebooks to public libraries across Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada. We find that books are actually less available where they are under copyright than where they are in the public domain, and that commercial publishers seem undeterred from investing in works even where others are competing to supply the same titles. We also find that exclusive rights do not appear to trigger investment in works that have low commercial demand, with books from 59% of the ‘culturally valuable’ authors we sampled unavailable in any jurisdiction, regardless of copyright status. This provides new evidence of how even the shortest copyright terms can outlast works’ commercial value, even where cultural value remains. Further, we find that works are priced much higher where they are under copyright than where they in the public domain, and these differences typically far exceed what would be paid to authors or their heirs. Thus, one effect of extending copyrights from life + 50 to life + 70 is that libraries are obliged to pay higher prices in exchange for worse access.This is the first published study to test the underuse hypothesis outside the US, and the first to analyse comparative availability of identical works across jurisdictions where their copyright status differs. It adds to the evidence that the underuse hypothesis is not borne out by real world practice. Nonetheless, countries are still being obliged to enact extended terms as a cost of trade access. We argue that such nations should explore alternative ways of dividing up those rights to better achieve copyright’s fundamental aims of rewarding authors and promoting widespread access to knowledge and culture.

Why Politicians Are More Tolerant: Selective Recruitment and Socialization Among Political Elites in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States

1993 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Sullivan ◽  
Pat Walsh ◽  
Michal Shamir ◽  
David G. Barnum ◽  
James L. Gibson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Personal Characteristics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Personality Characteristics ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Political Tolerance ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Public ◽  
Members Of Parliament

In this article, we present data showing that national legislators are more tolerant than the public in Britain, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. Two explanations for this phenomenon are presented and assessed. The first is the selective recruitment of Members of Parliament, Knesset and Congress from among those in the electorate whose demographic, ideological and personality characteristics predispose them to be tolerant. Although this process does operate in all four countries, it is insufficient to explain all of the differences in tolerance between elites and the public in at least three countries. The second explanation relies on a process of explicitly political socialization, leading to differences in tolerance between elites and their public that transcend individual-level, personal characteristics. Relying on our analysis of political tolerance among legislators in the four countries, we suggest how this process of political socialization may be operating.

Latin Manuscript Pontificals and Benedictionals in England and Wales

Traditio ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 391-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Brückmann
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Full Description ◽  
University Of Kansas ◽  
The Public ◽  
The World ◽  
Complete Catalogue ◽  
Manuscript Collections ◽  
The University

The importance of the manuscript pontificals for the study of the medieval evolution of the Latin liturgy needs no reaffirmation here. The state of the published descriptions and classifications of these manuscripts, however, is not commensurate in all cases with what their importance would lead one to expect.Ehrensberger has provided a full description of the manuscript pontificasl preserved in the Vatican Library; although this is no longer recent, it is invaluable in the absence of a complete catalogue of the Vatican manuscripts. The monumental work of Leroquais describes in detail the manuscript pontificals extant in the public libraries in France; as most of the pontificals in France appear to be in public libraries, this work is fairly comprehensive in its coverage. Dom Anselm Strittmatter has listed and classified the liturgical manuscripts preserved in the United States. For pontificals in other countries, however, there exist no such reference works. Professor Richard Kay of the University of Kansas is currently compiling a handlist in which all the manuscript pontificals extant throughout the world will be cited and briefly identified, but not fully described. Until this appears, anyone working on pontificals or on ordines normally included in pontificals will quite likely have to work systematically through innumerable catalogues of manuscript collections to cover every library, city by city, for a frequently minimal return.

“No One Shakes Me”: Rejected Queer Identities and the Creation of Sacred Ugandan Spaces in Honor of the Orlando Massacre

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 550-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tshepo Masango Chéry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Gay And Lesbian ◽  
The Public ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Creation

Queer Ugandans operate as identity fugitives, a term to describe the ways gay and lesbian Ugandans cannot share their whole selves in the public domain and sometimes even in policed private spheres. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) organizers have responded by creating refuges for endangered and alienated queer Ugandans. These spaces are sacred because they resist homophobic sites of hostility throughout Uganda. In June of 2016, the Ugandan LGBTQ community commemorated victims of the Orlando massacre in the United States as they meditated on the fragility of queer life globally. The violence at Pulse nightclub in Orlando reinforced the precariousness of these cultivated sacred spaces. The LGBTQ community in Uganda bravely commemorated the victims of the massacre by creating a transnational site of mourning, one that highlighted the dynamism of queer expression even under government sanctioned societal oppression.

WAS ANDREW CARNEGIE GENEROUS?

Think ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (26) ◽  
pp. 91-98
Author(s):  
Daniel Putman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
The World ◽  
Definition Of

Millions of Americans, as well as millions in Europe, have used or will use a library established by Andrew Carnegie. In his lifetime Carnegie gave the equivalent of several billion dollars in today's money to establish 1,689 public libraries in the United States, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Moreover, 660 libraries in Britain and Ireland, 125 in Canada, 17 in New Zealand, 12 in South Africa and scattered others around the world exist because of this man.1 And this does not include the extensive positive influence of the foundations and grants established by Carnegie. Aristotle would likely have called him ‘magnificent’. Carnegie had the virtue beyond mere generosity available only to those with the means and position to benefit the polis on a grand scale. Unlike generosity, magnificence involves what Irwin has called ‘the judgment and tact that are needed for large benefactions.2 Whether ‘magnificent’ or ‘generous’ is a better term for Carnegie's character is not my major concern. Carnegie's recent biographer simply uses ‘generous’. So, for the remainder of this paper, I will use ‘generous’.3 But was Carnegie, in fact, generous? This paper will explore both the definition of the virtue and its application to Andrew Carnegie.

The Land Department as an Administrative Tribunal

1916 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles R. Pierce
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Land Policy ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
United States Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
Northwest Territory ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Moment

If, for the moment, we can conceive of Uncle Sam as being Andrew Carnegie, of Carnegie's millions as unimproved real estate, and of Carnegie's intention to die poor, as Uncle Sam's liberal land policy, we can perhaps best picture to ourselves the public land administration in the United States in a nutshell. The government, like Carnegie, is unloading its vast wealth in a manner calculated to do the most good, and it is guarding itself continuously, although often futilely, from being imposed upon and cheated. The ownership of the public domain by the United States is of the highest possible title. There is no one to dispute the government's absolute ownership of it. There are no taxes to pay. The government is subject to no obligation to dispose of its land. It can keep or dispose of the land as it chooses.In 1789 the United States government started as owner of practically all of the Northwest Territory. Later it acquired, what some geographers call the Southwest Territory, by further cession from the States. By purchase, discovery, annexation and conquest the United States acquired further holdings, so that with the exception of Texas and private holdings the government's fee simple title in the public domain extended from the thirteen colonies to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of Florida to the Pacific and the Arctic Oceans.

scholarly journals A Study of the Copyright Renewal Rate for Maps

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Musser
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Public ◽  
Renewal Rate ◽  
The U.S

This study examines the copyright renewal of maps published in the United States from 1923 to 1950 and compares the results with a recent study of copyright renewals for books. Results indicate that, while the average copyright renewal rate for maps appears similar to that of books, the average was skewed higher by a single publisher whose renewal rate was much higher than average. With the data from that publisher excluded, the average copyright renewal rate dropped to 10% meaning that a significant number of maps copyrighted in the U.S. in the first half of the 20th century are probably in the public domain due to lack of copyright renewal.

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