June 26, 2003
The Washington Post covered the Bill's introduction.
In the story Rich Taylor, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, is quoted as saying, "Especially in the case of movies, those works are more available for public consumption when their owners have an economic incentive to preserve and market them. Once those works fall into the public domain, those incentives are removed and consumers end up being the losers."
He completely misses the point.
If the owners have an "economic incentive to preserve and market them," they certainly have the same incentives to pay 1$ to maintain their copyright! This bill is about the other 90% of the creative works where there is no longer any incentive for the owner to preserve them. Those are the ones that will fall into the public domain because their owners fail to pay the $1. And because they're in the public domain, others can afford to preserve and archive them without having to go through the expensive process of searching down the copyright owner to get permission.