This is a couple of years old, but I had never read it before: How I Lost the Big One , wherein Lawrence Lessig explains what went wrong in the 2003 Supreme Court case that, for all intents and purposes, ended the Public Domain for anything created since 1923.
(Briefly, the Court decided that Congress has the right to extend copyrights indefinitely despite the fact that the Constitution explicitly states that exclusive rights should only be secured “for limited Times.”)
But now, Techdirt is suggesting that Lessig might have another opportunity to fight for big changes in copyright law. Don’t hold your breath, but don’t count him out either!