Most all three of these have a user base which would attack and conquer the problem of filling in information – the problem is getting the existing community involved. I've bene on gutenberg mailing lists for going on 4 years – never once have they really talked about music to any extent – it's only through search engines that I found out they had any. Promotion needs to be part of whoever archive's it mission.

I guess architectural plans are a little off-topic but still valid. Thinking to it I think building plans are patented and trademarked. This is why cities keep records of as many architectural plans as they can in city office. So essentially these plans are public record and are within the public domain. There is no reason they shouldn't be scanned in as part of new plans being entered in going forward. You would still need a repository, but the plans should be made available by city government – and don't get me started about cities not having the full local laws and codes online by now…..

The problem with the art scenario isn't a copywritten one – in theory the image is in the public domain once the first sale has occurred or the image has ever been published. The problem is we move into property rights. I have a couple images that may or may not be in the public domain – if they were it doesn't matter since I have access to them and you don't. I do not have to give you access to my property to take pictures or make scans of. This is a different scenario all together then dealing with copyrights.

Old stuff is not locked down – you just have to track it down. I shouldn't have to go to eighty websites to get all the scores to Beethoven's works – but as the web stands right now I would have to (I'm generalizing one site may have it all but have very little Bach) – Search technology for some of this stuff is week – pictures are only now getting ok at being searched – but that is all based on title and meta data – for things like architectural plans or sheet music – the workings for meta data for search isn't the strongest just yet.

FYI – I personally don't care about architectural plans – I just use them as an example of a media that is locked away solely because no one has made a repository for them yet.

I really wonder what kinds of architectural plans do you have on your mind, and where should be these found? All I know is that they're protected author's death+50 years, so basically we speak of papersto be scanned, but I still fail to see where these should be found (I'm not related to any architect so far, unless playing with ArchiCAD counts). Scanning is an exhausting task and doesn't really give satisfaction because the target audience is pretty narrow.

I did not want to sound like “good stuff is copyrighted” would be the state of th world, but I just part of the team organising the “Wikipedia Loves Art” movement's local brainchild, which basically try to make good photographs of not copyrighted art, and I tell you it's not really possible. These are not copyrighted, but owned, and the owner have full rights over the object, including rejecting premission to make photos. Or ask money for it. Quite nice sums indeed.

So basically new stuff is copyrighted, old stuff is locked down. Often, and not always; and some presuasion could lead to opening up objects otherwise free, like art, old books, etc. Needs people with strong drive, and lots of time. :-(

Back to the original question: search technology actually makes the problem less serious, as scattered sheets can be looked up and found. It even helps archival by using different geolocations and multiple copies. :-)

Most all three of these have a user base which would attack and conquer the problem of filling in information – the problem is getting the existing community involved. I've bene on gutenberg mailing lists for going on 4 years – never once have they really talked about music to any extent – it's only through search engines that I found out they had any. Promotion needs to be part of whoever archive's it mission.

I guess architectural plans are a little off-topic but still valid. Thinking to it I think building plans are patented and trademarked. This is why cities keep records of as many architectural plans as they can in city office. So essentially these plans are public record and are within the public domain. There is no reason they shouldn't be scanned in as part of new plans being entered in going forward. You would still need a repository, but the plans should be made available by city government – and don't get me started about cities not having the full local laws and codes online by now…..

The problem with the art scenario isn't a copywritten one – in theory the image is in the public domain once the first sale has occurred or the image has ever been published. The problem is we move into property rights. I have a couple images that may or may not be in the public domain – if they were it doesn't matter since I have access to them and you don't. I do not have to give you access to my property to take pictures or make scans of. This is a different scenario all together then dealing with copyrights.

Old stuff is not locked down – you just have to track it down. I shouldn't have to go to eighty websites to get all the scores to Beethoven's works – but as the web stands right now I would have to (I'm generalizing one site may have it all but have very little Bach) – Search technology for some of this stuff is week – pictures are only now getting ok at being searched – but that is all based on title and meta data – for things like architectural plans or sheet music – the workings for meta data for search isn't the strongest just yet.

FYI – I personally don't care about architectural plans – I just use them as an example of a media that is locked away solely because no one has made a repository for them yet.

I really wonder what kinds of architectural plans do you have on your mind, and where should be these found? All I know is that they're protected author's death+50 years, so basically we speak of papersto be scanned, but I still fail to see where these should be found (I'm not related to any architect so far, unless playing with ArchiCAD counts). Scanning is an exhausting task and doesn't really give satisfaction because the target audience is pretty narrow.

I did not want to sound like “good stuff is copyrighted” would be the state of th world, but I just part of the team organising the “Wikipedia Loves Art” movement's local brainchild, which basically try to make good photographs of not copyrighted art, and I tell you it's not really possible. These are not copyrighted, but owned, and the owner have full rights over the object, including rejecting premission to make photos. Or ask money for it. Quite nice sums indeed.

So basically new stuff is copyrighted, old stuff is locked down. Often, and not always; and some presuasion could lead to opening up objects otherwise free, like art, old books, etc. Needs people with strong drive, and lots of time. :-(

Back to the original question: search technology actually makes the problem less serious, as scattered sheets can be looked up and found. It even helps archival by using different geolocations and multiple copies. :-)

Other stuff is hard to find (eg. free photos if you are not the author, because they are usually lost, not digitised or owned by an institute with definitive methods preventing good quality copies) or require ridiculous amount of storage space (in case of good quality non-copyright-restricted movies), and usually all these are hard to access.

I do not think it's the internet to blame, people do more than they're allowed to by moneymen (I mean, erm, lawmakers), they keep publish stuff all around. But useful stuff often copyrighted, like recent musical sheets, color photographs, movies. Internet's out of options unless we consider breaking the law.