John Mark Ockerbloom, founder of The Online Books Page, wrote in August 1999: "I think it is important for people on the web to understand that copyright is a social contract that is designed for the public good -- where the public includes both authors and readers. This means that authors should have the right to exclusive use of their creative works for limited times, as is expressed in current copyright law. But it also means that their readers have the right to copy and reuse the work at will once copyright expires. In the U.S. now, there are various efforts to take rights away from readers, by restricting fair use, lengthening copyright terms (even with some proposals to make them perpetual) and extending intellectual property to cover facts separate from creative works (such as found in the 'database copyright' proposals).“ The shrinking of public domain also affected the European Union, where copyright laws went from "author's life + 50 years" to "author's life + 70 years", following pressure from content owners who successfully lobbied for "harmonization" of national copyright laws as a response to "globalization of the market". To regulate the copyright of digital editions in the wake of the relevant WIPO international treaties signed in 1996, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) was ratified in October 1998 in the United States, and the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD) was ratified in May 2001 by the European Commission. Each country in the European Union was requested to draft and pass its own legislation within a given time frame. In France, DADVSI (Droit d'Auteur et Droits Voisins dans la Société de l'Information) passed in August 2006, with the general public being not so happy about it. 1998 > THE FIRST EBOOK READERS [Summary] How about a book-sized electronic device that could store many books at once? The first ebook readers were developed in Silicon Valley, California. The Rocket eBook was launched in 1998 in Palo Alto by NuvoMedia, whose investors were Barnes & Noble and Bertelsmann. Shortly afterwards, the SoftBook Reader was launched by SoftBook Press, whose investors were Random House and Simon & Schuster. These two ebook readers were the size of a (large and thick) book, with batteries and a black and white LCD screen. They could connect to the internet through a computer (for the Rocket eBook) or directly with a built-in modem (for the SoftBook Reader) to download books from the digital bookstores available on the companies’ websites. Other models followed in 1999, for example the EveryBook Reader, launched by EveryBook, and the Millennium eBook, launched by Librius. The Gemstar eBook was launched in the U.S. in November 2000. The Cybook (1st generation) was in Europe in January 2001. *** How about a book-sized electronic device that could store many books at once? The first ebook readers were the Rocket eBook and the SoftBook Reader, launched in Silicon Valley in 1998.