ovide access to copyright renewal records, which
eventually should make it easier to find books published after 1922 that have
entered the public domain due to nonrenewal. I welcome contributions of
additional records, in page image, text, or HTML format.

Although the bill has become law, I would encourage readers to speak loudly in
support of the public domain. Congressional testimony indicates that some in the
entertainment industry favor even longer copyright periods, effectively
preventing anything further from ever entering the public domain. Your voice is
needed to help stop this from happening."

Journalists, too, are particularly concerned by this problem of intellectual
property rights. During the ILO Symposium on Multimedia Convergence held in
January 1997, Bernie Lunzer, Secretary-Treasurer of the Newspaper Guild, United
States, stated:

"There is a huge battle over intellectual property rights, especially with
freelancers, but also with our members who work under collective bargaining
agreements. The freelance agreements that writers are asked to sign are
shocking. Bear in mind that freelance writers are paid very little. They turn
over all their future rights - reuse rights - to the publisher and very little
in exchange. Publishers are fighting for control and ownership of product,
because they are seeing the future."

Another participant to this Symposium, Heinz-Uwe Ruebenach, of the Federal
Association of German Newspaper Publishers (Bundesverband Deutscher
Zeitungsverleger), said:

"Copyright is one of the keys to the future information society. If a publishing
house which offers the journalist work, even on an on-line service, is not able
to manage and control the use of the resulting product, then it will not be
possible to finance further investments in the necessary technology. Without
that financing, the future becomes less positive and jobs can suffer. If,
however, publishers see that they are able to make multiple use of their
investment, then obviously this is beneficial for all. Otherwise the costs
associated with on-line services would increase considerably. As far as the
European market is concerned, this would only increase competitive pressures,
since United States publishers do not have to pay for multiple uses."

DOI: The Digital Object Identifier System is an identification system for
intellectual property in the digital environment. Developed by the DOI
Foundation on behalf of the p