Page:Shrinking the Commons.djvu/9

 beneficial effects on creative production from the existence and availability of freely usable public-domain works. By reducing the costs creators must pay to reuse others’ creations in their own, a rich commons pays public dividends in the form of greater production of expressive works. As discussed below, however, changes to U.S. copyright law over the past three decades have tended to restrict the entry of new works into the public domain. If a robust public domain fuels creativity, the strengthening of private property rights may have the opposite effect—they may increase authors’ costs and deter future creativity, creating what Michael Heller calls “the tragedy of the anticommons.” The parallel rise of the open-content movement, which leverages existing copyright and contract principles to create a new commons outside the public domain, might be seen as a reaction to the excessive expansion of property rights into fields of intellectual and creative