e the public includes both authors and readers. This means that
authors should have the right to exclusive use of their creative works for
limited times, as is expressed in current copyright law. But it also means that
their readers have the right to copy and reuse the work at will once copyright
expires. In the US now, there are various efforts to take rights away from
readers, by restricting fair use, lengthening copyright terms (even with some
proposals to make them perpetual) and extending intellectual property to cover
facts separate from creative works (such as found in the "database copyright"
proposals). There are even proposals to effectively replace copyright law
altogether with potentially much more onerous contract law."

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 70 years, instead of life plus 50 years, following pressure
from content owners, with the subsequent "harmonization" of national copyright
laws as a response to the "globalization of the market".

But there is still hope for some books published after 1923. According to Greg
Newby, director of PGLAF (Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation), one
million books published between 1923 and 1964 could also belong to the public
domain, because only 10% of copyrights were actually renewed. Project Gutenberg
tries to locate these books. In April 2004, with the help of hundreds of
volunteers at Distributed Proofreaders, all Copyright Renewal records were
posted for books from 1950 through 1977. So, if a given book published during
this period is not on the list, it means the copyright was not renewed, and the
book fell into the public domain. In April 2007, Stanford University used this
data to create a Copyright Renewal Database, searchable by title, author,
copyright date and copyright renewal date.

7. FROM THE PAST TO THE FUTURE

The bet made by Michael Hart in 1971 succeeded. Project Gutenberg counted 10
books online in August 1989; 100 books in January 1994; 1,000 books in August
1997; 2,000 books in May 1999; 3,000 books in December 2000; 4,000 books in
October 2001; 5,000 books in April 2