This is the lawsuit to free old, out-of-print works that libraries and others want to digitize, but are still under an ever-lengthening copyright term. Tracking down copyright owners can be extremely difficult to impossible. In fact, the owners could be an author's heirs who have no clue that they own the copyright to, say, a 1930s church newsletter.
As Brewster Kahle, a plaintiff in the suit, posted to the archivists-talk list:
"Let's hope sanity prevails and we protect our libraries."
Source: Teleread January 21st
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