Finding the Public Domain | Ithaka S+R

"The public domain is the ultimate open access. It is key to the bargain of copyright. Rather simplistically, in order to incentivize authors to produce works, the public, through Congress, grants authors copyrights in those works. While there is a range of opinion about the purpose and nature of copyright, they all have one common idea: copyright is limited by time. A copyright is a monopoly that lasts for a limited time and is limited by certain conditions. Those limitations on these otherwise exclusive rights include fair use and first sale along with a host of specific exceptions and restraints to copyright. Most readers will be familiar with the language of Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution which empowers Congress 'To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.' This duration limit is a Constitutional requirement. It means that copyrights evaporate entirely after a certain point in time.

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Historically, copyright review has been uncoordinated and has taken place on a modest scale. The Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) changes that. [1] CRMS was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services over three National Leadership Grants. It was led by the University of Michigan in collaboration with 19 other highly dedicated research libraries. Together, we developed a system to train and coordinate reviewers to assess the copyright status of digitized books held in the HathiTrust Digital Library. Over the course of the three interrelated grants that make up the CRMS project, we developed expertise in managing a large collaborative project."