The New York Times will stop charging for access to parts of its Web site, effective at midnight tonight....
In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public domain. There will be charges for some material from the period 1923 to 1986, and some will be free.
Not to spoil the mood of the moment, which is most definitely celebratory (woohoo!), but it's a bit depressing to be reminded virtually everything written in my lifetime is still copyrighted, a fact that stands the original idea of copyright on its head. The original intent of copyright was to protect the public, not the publishers, by assuring work would pass into the public domain in a reasonable time. That's why it's called - I'm just guessing here - copy right, not you can't touch it, you mangy pirate (see below), right.
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