GLYN MOODY, Walled Culture; Public domain: a belated step forward, two huge steps back
"Nor is Canada alone in its folly. Another post on this blog last year noted that New Zealand too has decided to extend its copyright term despite the moral and economic arguments against it. Once more, the reason was a trade deal – with the UK – one of whose requirements was this unnecessary strengthening of copyright. What this means in practice is that for the next 20 years, neither Canada nor New Zealand will see any published works enter the public domain on the first of January. This creates a massive historical void in those countries’ culture, for no good reason.
Although we can celebrate the wonderful works that have finally entered the public domain in places like America after being locked up behind copyright’s walls for so long, we should be outraged that two countries have just taken a massive step backwards in this respect.
Featured image created with Stable Diffusion."
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