Following that move, the U.S. had little choice but to extend its copyright terms. Not to do so would be inviting chaos to the world’s publishing market. It did so with the Sonny Bono Copyright Act.
Certainly the longer terms did benefit some corporate interests, although their main benefits stem from their trademark ownership of characters, which has no expiration date. Despite the often-bandied claim that the Act was written to benefit Disney, in reality the move of Steamboat Willie and the other earliest cartoons into the public domain would have had minimal economic impact. I find that the Wikipedia article on the Sonny Bono Act to be wrong in its explanation. Mickey Mouse would no more come into the public domain by Steamboat Willie doing so than Sherlock Holmes has entered the public domain even though the earliest stories can be reprinted.
The U.S. law was not in any way a move that was part of “the US’s efforts to have it’s cpyrightlaws apply to every country on earth.” as Scott_plaid said earlier, although that is an all-too-common misunderstanding of the law. The U.S. was forced to play catch-up. This is an increasingly common reality given the power of the EU and its greater regulatory inclination than U.S. law.
Take a look at O’Reilly’s Safari Bookshelf. Over 2,000 technical volumes. Pay a monthly fee, and you can search the whole library and electronically “check them out” to read on your computer.
O’Reilly is a publisher, not a library. Publishers who keep control of electronic rights can put their books online. Baen Books makes most of its available as well. So do many smaller presses.
But these are not libraries. Libraries are third parties and have no such rights. This is a crucial legal distinction to make.
Exapno, you are failing to see the forest for the trees. If you don’t see the systematic violations of fair use the DMCA encourages, this isn’t the place to change your mind.
The OP was asking where to find a library of reference materials online. He wasn’t asking what a library’s legal rights are. Every tech company I’ve been involved with has had a library of books available for the employees to use. Publishers have libraries. Schools have libraries. The senior center in town has one, as does the Boys and Girls Club.
You’ve gotten so hung up on your rights discussion, Exapno, that you forgot what the OP was asking. I don’t happen to know of an online reference library for political books, but I could at least point him at an online reference library of tech books. Such things do exist.
Thanks for pointing out Baen, by the way. Theirs was a very gutsy move, since they’re making content from books that they’re currently selling available online for free.
That is a fascinating article. The debate in the scientific community, and the battle between authors and publishers, looks pretty intense.
Interestingly enough, this issue is being examined closely by people in the humanities as well. In my own field, the American Historical Association is well aware of the implications of open access publishing. This month’s edition of the AHA’s magazine, Perspectives, contains an article called Should Historical Scholarship Be Free?**, by the vice-president of the Research Division, on the issue. It looks at some of the key issues, and at the question of who would benefit from such a system, and is quite an interesting read.
The author of the article is also in charge of George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media, which is an excellent project designed not only to make good scholarly historical work available on the internet, but to act as a resource that helps people make use of new technology in their teaching and research.
** I’m a member of the AHA, but i didn’t need to log in to read that article, so the link should work. Let me know if it doesn’t, and i’ll quote a bit of the relevant material.