ses using steam and electric presses (hence the 28-year copyright); c) 1976,
date of a new tightening of the copyright following the introduction of the
Xerox photocopying machine (hence the 50-year copyright after the author's
life); d) 1998, date of a further tightening of the copyright following the
development of the internet (hence the 70-year copyright after the author's
life). These are only the main lines. The Copyright Act has been amended 11
times in the last 40 years.

As stated by Tom W. Bell in Trend of Maximum U.S. General Copyright Term (with a
very useful chart): "The first federal copyright legislation, the 1790 Copyright
Act, set the maximum term at fourteen years plus a renewal term of fourteen
years. The 1831 Copyright Act doubled the initial term and retained the
conditional renewal term, allowing a total of up to forty-two years of
protection. Lawmakers doubled the renewal term in 1909, letting copyrights run
for up to fifty-six years. The interim renewal acts of 1962 through 1974 ensured
that the copyright in any work in its second term as of September 19, 1962,
would not expire before Dec. 31, 1976. The 1976 Copyright Act changed the
measure of the default copyright term to life of the author plus fifty years.
Recent amendments to the Copyright Act [the ones in 1998] expanded the term yet
again, letting it run for the life of the author plus seventy years."

The amendments of the Copyright Act, dated October 27, 1998, were a major blow
for digital libraries and deeply shocked their founders, beginning with Michael
Hart and John Mark Ockerbloom, founder of The Online Books Page. But how were
they to measure up to the major publishing companies? Michael wrote in July
1999: "No one has said more against copyright extensions than I have, but
Hollywood and the big publishers have seen to it that our Congress won't even
mention it in public. The kind of copyright debate going on is totally
impractical. It is run by and for the 'Landed Gentry of the Information Age.'
'Information Age'? For whom?"

True enough. The political authorities continually speak about an information
age while tightening the laws relating to the dissemination of information. The
contradiction is obvious. This problem has also affected Australia (forcing
Project Gutenberg of Australia to withdraw dozens of books from its collections)
and several European countries. In a number of countries, the rule is now life
of the author plus 7