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Douglas B. Killings
6688 N. Sioux Ave.
Chicago, IL 60646
U.S.A.
DtTreyes@A0L.COM Phone: (312) 792-0645
16 July 1995
The Honorable Carlos Moorhead, Chairman Courts and Intellectual Property Subcommittee B 351 A Rayburn Washington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Moorhead;
I would like to express ray opposition to House Bill HR989, The Extension of Copyright Act.
This bill is designed to extend the current copyright laws for all intellectual property, adding additional years of protection and re-instating some copyrights that have previously lapsed.
My opposition is twofold. First, that extended copyright protection would be detrimental to academic, scholarly and literary interests. Second, that it would seriously undermine the principal of a free and open Public Domain.
HR989, while extending copyright for a handful of works in which some fiduciary interest still remains almost a century after initial publication, would also condemn thousands (perhaps millions) more works to the same rules - even though there is no longer any fiduciary interest in these works. Publishing houses, which control the use and printing of the copyrighted materials they own, are usually reluctant to reprint works that do not sell. Yet, despite this, neither are they willing to let small press and academic groups reprint these works without paying hefty royalties. Thus, works that were published once but never reprinted (or have not been reprinted in years) may have to wait an additional 20 years before they can be made more readily available. It makes no sense to extend copyright on a work published in 1923 and never reprinted (such as R.W. Chambers book on the Medieval English poem "Widsith"), but which is still thought by scholars in the field to be an important, albeit hard to find, work. Were it allowed to go into the public domain, as it should, there is a good chance it will finally be re-issued, and hence be made more widely availsUsle.
HR989 would also contribute to a further weakening of the principal of a strong Public Domain. It has been long recognized that there should come a point at which the works of an author cease to become the property of their creator and instead become the intellectual