Wikimedia to Senate: Don’t weaken the public domain – Wikimedia Foundation

"In their attempts to reward legacy artists, the Senate may end up robbing the public domain of important cultural history instead. In an attempt to harmonize copyrights for the use of sound recordings created before 1972, the U.S. Senate is currently poised to pass a bill which could endanger the preservation and sharing of historical sound recordings online. The Music Modernization Act (MMA), which was passed in the House of Representatives in April and recently received unanimous approval in the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a hybrid bill that combines the Musical Works Modernization Act, Allocation for Music Producers Act, and CLASSICS Act. As the bill now heads to the Senate for a vote, the Wikimedia Foundation would like to express our concerns about the CLASSICS portion of the MMA, which is contrary to the principles behind copyright law and weakens the public domain...."