The National Science Foundation, the Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the Library of Congress are fully aware of the challenge to change those atoms into bits. Jefferson would be proud. But Jefferson did not understand bits. All of copyright law is essentially a Gutenberg artifact, bound to paper and construed in ignorance of the digital age. It will take us years to build digital libraries and longer to retool copyright law.
Intellectual property is an extraordinarily complex subject.
We are almost clueless about how to handle digital derivative works and digital fair use. In a digital world, the bits are endlessly copyable, infinitely malleable, and they never go out of print. Millions of people can simultaneously read any digital document - and they can also steal it. The information age is in a bit of a mess when it comes to understanding who may access what, when, how, and under the control of whom. But don't wait.