lessig's war

sez larry:

the idea is a simple one: fifty years after a work has been published, the copyright owner must pay a $1 maintanence fee. if the copyright owner pays the fee, then the copyright continues. if the owner fails to pay the fee, the work passes into the public domain. based on historical precedent, we expect 98% of copyrighted works would pass into the public domain after just 50 years. they could keep mickey for as long as congress lets them. but we would get a public domain.
...
we need to your help to resist this now. at this stage, all that we need is one congressperson to introduce the proposal. whether you call it the copyright term deregulation act, or the public domain enhancement act, doesn’t matter. what matters is finding a sponsor, so we can begin to show the world just how extreme this debate has become: they have already gotten a 20 year extension of all copyrights just so 2% can benefit; and now they object to paying just $1 for that benefit, so that no one else might compete with them.

i'm in. not only in spreading the word but also in hounding my representation in the house to get a move on with this. times like these make me wish that we had something like faxyourmp.com.