Page:The digital public domain.pdf/38

Rh many mistakes and inaccuracies included in the original scores. Vierne was born nearly blind, and such mistakes were obviously due to his wobbly handwriting. Up to the expiration of Vierne’s copyright, none of the publishers tried to correct the mistakes, because the copyright laws prevented them from editing the original works in any way.

Similarly, the film It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra, fell into the public domain in 1974 after the copyright holder failed to renew it. The film had been largely ignored since its original release. However, in 1975, a television station discovered that the movie was freely available and ran it during the Christmas period because its climax comes on Christmas Eve. Within a few years, It’s a Wonderful Life was being shown on television stations across the United States every Christmas. The success was terrific. Watching the film at Christmas time became a cultural tradition in the US.

Together with the value that may be immediately extracted from the entrance of a work into the public domain, a public domain approach to knowledge management may be a source of value on many different levels. Although a quantitative measurement is impossible, some quantitative conclusions on the value of the public domain can be inferred by examining a few examples of public domain approaches to knowledge production. In general, these examples show the role and the value of the digital public domain in allowing new business models to emerge.

In the case of file sharing for example, few studies have found significant benefits of free access. The studies have found that the impact of peer-to-peer file sharing on sales does not seem that relevant. Furthermore, data on the supply of new works seem to support the argument that the advent of file sharing did not discourage creators and creativity at large. In fact, the impact of file sharing