Copyright term
For instance, scholar Neil Netanel argued that Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 prevented the entering of works central to cultural heritage of the US into the public domain.[4] In order to tackle this perceived problem some jurisdictions have revised their copyright laws to allow use of orphaned works, after diligent searches.[7][8][9][10][11][12] One of the earlier and often cited positions is from the British politician Thomas Babington Macaulay who argued in an 1841 speech in the House of Commons that copyright is a monopoly and as such has generally negative effects on society.[13][14] Although Macaulay's speech is widely reported, the reaction to it in the House of Commons is hard to find – Ricketson reports that following Macaulay's claims that the heirs of certain authors would block publication of their works: At this point, the debate in the House of Commons fell into farce because there were claims by other speakers that they had no doubts (based on their own personal knowledge) that Richardson and Boswell's descendants would still have done the right thing and allowed reprinting, however much they abhorred their ancestors' works![7] As a curiosity, the work Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up is subject in the UK to a special clause in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988[26] that granted Great Ormond Street Hospital a right to royalty in perpetuity.