NJR - Copyfraud

[Mike Oxlong]

Copyfraud: Poisoning the public domain
How web giants are stealing the future of knowledge
By Charles Eicher

Special report The public domain is the greatest resource in human history: eventually all knowledge will become part of it. Its riches serve all mankind, but it faces a new threat. Vast libraries of public domain works are being plundered by claims of "copyright". It's called copyfraud - and we'll discover how large corporations like Google, Yahoo, and Amazon have structured their businesses to assist it and profit from it...

via The Register

[Screwed-down Hairdo]

Considering who wrote the piece, I bet copyfraud is an Aussie conspiracy!

[Catoneinutica]

It's actually a serious problem - vast swathes of images, documents, journal articles, etc. are being appropriated by for-profit companies. Try securing the rights to use a painting on your website by going through Bill Gates' Corbis. It almost makes you want to go to the museum and photograph the thing yourself (not that I'd ever condone such a thing...).

I can't be arsed to look up the info at the moment, but you can't even access a lot of public data in England without going through a private entity - yes, you have to pay a private company for public records!