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The article focuses on a project of mass-digitization of library materials, called the Open Content Alliance. The alliance plans to take carefully selected collections of out-of-copyright books from libraries around the world and turn them into electronic-books that will be available free to scholars. Brewster Kahle, director of the nonprofit Internet Archive, is guiding the project. Daniel Greenstein, executive director of the California Digital Library, says he hopes that libraries can contribute to the project by shifting some of the money they now spend on digital-book subscriptions to scanning books and adding them to the shared online collection.

The author discusses the perceived benefits of online authoritative editions and archival material. The author reflects upon his own experience of trying to find out-of-print writings from Walt Whitman, and how he found many of the works at www.whitmanarchive.org. According to the author the biggest advantage to online archives is that all the information is in a central area, and one does not have to search numerous institutions to find the archival materials. Another perceived advantage to online archives is that new materials can be made available immediately, which can foster dialogue beyond the circle of a few scholars who have access to the materials before conventional publication can take place.

The article looks at how a U.S. federal appeals court has ruled against archivists who sought to ease copyright restrictions on old books and films in order to promote archiving them on the Internet, where they would be freely available. In the case, Kahle v. Gonzales, two groups--the Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, and Prelinger Associates, which preserves films--sued the U.S. Justice Department. The archivists said four copyright laws were thwarting the public from viewing out-of-print books, old films, and academic articles that have no commercial value. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, California, said the case too closely resembled an earlier lawsuit that had challenged the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998.

Focuses on a federal lawsuit filed by legal scholar Lawrence Lessig in an attempt to allow old books and films to be placed in Internet archives where anyone can use them freely. Information on the two Internet archives that Lessig is supporting; Details of the Berne Convention Implementation Act and the Copyright Act of 1976; Impact of copyright laws on the "One Million Book Project" of the Internet Archive, Carnegie Mellon University, National Science Foundation and the governments of India and China.