Dream big. Imagine there existed a budget of $100 million to purchase copyrights to be made available under a free licence. What would you like to see purchased and released under a free licence? Photos libraries? textbooks? newspaper archives? Be bold, be specific, be general, brainstorm, have fun.

– Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, in an open e-mail

Bloggers and internet message boards are abuzz this week, consumed with the task of rethinking copyright reform. Nothing new there. Loosening the shackles of copyright restriction is the cause célèbre of the internet era. It’s a worthy, if not crucial, discussion.

But on the net, the debate too often devolves into an exercise in brinkmanship. The BitTorrent generation feels entitled to unfettered access to all creative works, while copyright holders assume anyone with a broadband connection is a potential thief. Thus, unauthorised downloads will continue unabated while rights holders, led by Disney, will fight in court for the extension of copyright protection into perpetuity. Sadly, the copyright-be-damned philosophy that pervades the net has done little to encourage innovation and intelligent debate on what constitutes fair use. Similarly, the tens of millions rights holders spend on DRM technologies and lobbying to extend copyright protections threatens to restrict our pursuit of knowledge and culture.

Perhaps a $100 million (£53 million) carrot will steer us back into the realm of possibility.

At the very least, Jimmy Wales’ "dream big" ultimatum establishes some essential priorities in this essential debate. It’s tough to argue the societal benefits of cracking DVD region codes, but access to old news archives and the restoration of out-of-print books, as some are suggesting, is a refreshing conversation-starter.

More than 500 responses have poured in to Slashdot this week. The wish list is both virtuous and realistic, restoring hope that some common ground can be found in the debate on rights protections versus fair use entitlement. Among the items chosen are old car repair manuals (for the auto buffs among us), academic text books (as a university lecturer, I wholeheartedly second that vote), and the works of Homer and old translations of the Bible (for the scholarly-minded and inspired).

One group of objects I would like to see set aside for preservation and dissemination is old films.

In Rome last week, Martin Scorsese took time out from promoting his new film, The Departed, to discuss a growing problem: the irretrievable physical deterioration of film prints. According to Scorsese, a celluloid film can lose its colour within six years. He said that 40 per cent of all original film prints produced in the 1950s are lost forever due to scratches, discolouration and wear and tear. For films produced before 1950, 80 per cent are gone for good, he said.

Hollywood has done little to protect these assets, robbing future generations of film classics. An essential piece of our history, not to mention art and culture, is lost forever too. This was inevitable in previous generations, but this is the digital age. We finally have the capability to preserve all meaningful works of art and scholarship from loss – whether it is due to physical deterioration or over-protective copyright attorneys – and share them with the rest of the planet. There’s one enormous "if" attached to that statement: if we can resolve the issue between copyright protection and fair use.

Sadly, this lofty goal will take more than a community of netizens and $100 million to achieve. What’s at stake is a mind-boggling concept: human history is chronicled daily and, at the same time, a meaningful piece of history vanishes. No amount of server farms and digital compression technologies will prevent this. We can save the meaningful from extinction, but only if we begin to prioritise that which is worth saving.

It’s a critical question to ponder: what works would you like to see preserved and made public for all?

Dream big, indeed.

Explore Tech & Web

• Personal Tech

• The Web

• Gadgets & Gaming

Times recommends

• ITV plans unavoidable TV adverts
• BT rolls out Phorm web tracking
• Analysis: Google is playing the long game against Apple