inking of public domain

Michael Hart created Project Gutenberg in July 1971 to make
electronic versions of literary works and disseminate them for
free. In 2009, Project Gutenberg has had tens of thousands of
downloads every day. As recalled by Michael in January 2009, "I
knew [in July 1971] that the future of computing, and the
internet, was going to be... 'The Information Age.' That was
also the day I said we would be able to carry quite literally
the entire Library of Congress in one hand and the system would
certainly make it illegal... too much power to leave in the
hands of the masses."

As defined by Project Gutenberg, "public domain is the set of
cultural works that are free of copyright, and belong to
everyone equally", i.e. for books, the ones that can be
digitized and released on the internet for free. But the task
of Project Gutenberg hasn't be made any easier by the
increasing restrictions to public domain. In former times, 50%
of works belonged to public domain, and could be freely used by
everybody. A much tougher legislation was set in place over the
centuries, step by step, especially during the 20th century,
despite our so-called "information society". In 2100, 99% of
works might be governed by copyright, with a meager 1% for
public domain.

In the "Copyright HowTo" section of its website, Project
Gutenberg explains how to confirm the public domain status of
books according to U.S. copyright laws. Here is a summary: (a)
Works published before 1923 entered the public domain no later
than 75 years from the copyright date: all these works belong
to public domain; (b) Works published between 1923 and 1977
retain copyright for 95 years: no such works will enter the
public domain until 2019; (c) Works created from 1978 on enter
the public domain 70 years after the death of the author if the
author is a natural person: nothing will enter the public
domain until 2049; (d) Works created from 1978 on enter the
public domain 95 years after publication or 120 years after
creation if the author is a corporate one: nothing will enter
the public domain until 2074.

Each copyright legislation is more restrictive than the
previous one. A major blow for digital libraries was the
amendment to the 1976 Copyright Act signed on October 27, 1998.
As explained by Michael Hart in July 1999: "Nothing will expire
for another 20 years. We used to have to wait 75 years. Now it
is 95 years. And it was 28 years (+ a possib