@article{41931,
      author = {Spoo, Robert},
      url = {http://tind.wipo.int/record/41931},
      title = {The Uncoordinated Public Domain},
      abstract = {When  nations  amend  their  copyright  laws  in  response   to  calls  for  international   harmonization,   they    usually   expand   authors’   rights   without  also   seeking  to  harmonize  national  public  domains.   Divergent  national copyright laws have resulted in an  uncoordinated global public domain  that  renders   authors’  works  freely  available  for  use  in  some   countries while subjecting them to copyright or  moral-rights protection in others. While the fragmented  global commons thwarts many valuable uses  of  cultural   resources,  it  has  especially  deleterious  effects  on   the  ability  of  researchers  to  access,  copy,  and   disseminate  historical  and  literary materials, many of  which remain unpublished. These effects are mirrored  and   exacerbated  by  the  inconsistent  policies  of  cultural   repositories  that  control  access  to  millions  of   documents  and  images.  The  uncoordinated  public  domain   shares  certain  features—notably, fragmented  ownership   and  resource  underuse—with  an  anticommons.  This   Article  offers  a  theoretical  framework  for   understanding  the  uncoordinated public domain, and  illustrates the tragic inefficiencies of this  patchwork   commons  by  discussing  its  impact  on  a  number  of   research   and   publishing   projects   involving   modern    authors—in particular,  James  Joyce.  A  balanced   solution  to  the  checkerboard  effects  of  the  commons   would  be  to  employ  a  treaty-based  system  of   compulsory  licenses  to  harmonize  national  public   domains  and  to  coordinate the legal conditions whereby  the world’s vast informational resources  could  be   globally  disseminated  by  researchers  and  other   users.},
      recid = {41931},
      pages = {45 pages},
}