Lawrence Lessig has a new proposal for copyrights. Fifty years after a work has been published, its copyright owner would be required to pay a small tax to keep it under copyright protection. If the tax is not paid for three years, the work is forfeit to public domain. He describes the idea and his motivations in more details in a The New York Times article and an entry in his blog. There’s also a FAQ.
It’s a nice idea that could hold some appeal to corporations. It doesn’t give us everything, as Lessig points, but it’s a good start.