Orphan Works Bill Back Before Congress Today
After killing the Orphan Works bill earlier this week, the House of Representatives is taking it up again today outraging talent from coast to coast. As a result, an urgent call has gone out to fans of all creative endeavors to lobby their congressmen to kill the bill one more time.
According to OpenCongress, the bill “would limit the amount of damages a copyright holder could collect from an infringer of an orphan work if the infringer performed a diligent search for the copyright holder before using their work. The goal of the legislation is to free up for reuse copyrighted works whose holders cannot be found. It would also set up a process for the Copyright Office to certify commercially-produced visual registries to help people locate the holder of a copyright and prevent the orphaning of works in the future.”
The Senate version of the bill can be seen here.
The House version of the bill can be seen here.
Organizations from across the creative arts field have risen to protest the bill as seen at this site.
Wikipedia describes an orphan work this way: “An orphan work is a copyrighted work where it is difficult or impossible to contact the copyright holder. This situation can arise for many reasons. The author could have never been publicly known because the work was published anonymously or the work may have never been traditionally published at all. The identity of the author could have been once known but the information lost over time. Even if the author is known, it may not be possible to determine who inherited the copyright and presently owns it. Nearly any work where a reasonable effort to locate the current copyright owner fails can be considered orphaned. However the designation is often used loosely and in some jurisdictions there is no legal definition at all.”
U.S. Representative Lamar Smith introduced a bill in May 2006 trying to tackle the issue by limiting what can be done when the copyright owner cannot be located. It was withdrawn from consideration that September. A similar bill surfaced in March of this year and was formally introduced to congress on April 24. The senate version includes the creation of a database of orphaned pictorial, graphic and sculptural works. (more…)
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