Apparently with a letter from Congressman Lamar Smith to Marybeth Peters Register of Copyrights, asking the Copyright Office to study the problem of older works whose owner can not be found. It then goes on to say . . .
"As established by Section 104 of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, existing copyright law creates a limitation on exclusive rights for reproductions by libraries and archives of works during the last 20 years of any term of copyright of a published work. --- in other words the problem of preservation and restoration has already been solved.
Some are concerned that this provision does not ensure that older works are commercialized or made available to the public via libraries and archives to the greatest extent possible." -- Congressman Lamar Smith 1/7/05 to the Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters --- not to be obvious here but they aren't 'commercialized' because the artist owns the exclusive rights - duh!
Now excerpts from the report:
This Report addresses the issue of "orphan works," a term used to describe the situation where the owner of a copyrighted work cannot be identified and located by someone who wishes to make use of the work in a manner that requires permission of the copyright owner. Where the proposed use goes beyond an exemption or limitation to copyright, the user cannot reduce the risk of copyright liability for such use, because there is always a possibility, however remote, that a copyright owner could bring an infringement action after that use has begun. --- isn't that what we call an effective law? One where the penalty is substantial enough that no one will risk committing the crime. Man, what a surprise! We actually have ONE law that is working. No wonder Congress wants to kill it. Why set a precedence?
We received over 850 written initial and reply comments, most of which were authored by individuals, and described an enormous variety of problems. First, about 40% of the comments did not identify an instance in which someone could not locate a copyright owner, and another large portion identified situations that were clearly not orphan work situations. --- Translation the people who are most angered by this situation are idiots! Still, about 50% of the comments identified a situation that could fairly be categorized as an orphan works situation, and even more instances were collected in comments filed by trade associations and other groups.
The Report describes the most common obstacles to successfully identifying and locating the copyright owner, such as (1) inadequate identifying information on a copy of the work itself; (2) inadequate information about copyright ownership because of a change of ownership or a change in the circumstances of the owner; (3) limitations of existing copyright ownership information sources; and (4) difficulties researching copyright information. --- and of these 4 things the Shawn Bentley Orphaned Works Act addresses exactly NONE!
It then describes other situations raised by commenters that were alleged to be “orphan work” situations but upon closer inspection are outside the scope of this inquiry. --- which means a good chunk of the initial 450 people who really did have examples of Orphaned Works issues, really didn't! So all this time and energy is being wasted for less than 450 people! Are you kidding me?
And what were those issues with Orphaned works that were outside of this inquiry? These include situations where the user contacted the owner, but did not receive permission to use the work, either because the owner did not respond to the request, refused the request, or required a license fee that the user felt was too high. --- So for this they want the law changed?
The uses commenters indicated were most affected by the orphan works situations are: (1) uses by subsequent creators who add some degree of their own expression to existing works to create a derivative work; --- which makes sense because it's up to the artist as to whether he wants to allow a derivative work. (2) large-scale "access" uses where users primarily wish to bring large quantities of works to the public, usually via the Internet; --- Ahhh-ha, so is this Time Warner's true interest? Do they expect the gov. to declare bargain basement days on licensing so they can buy in bulk from the depression era photos or any other photos for that matter, and create membership sites for access? (3) "enthusiast" or hobbyist use which usually involve specialized or niche works, and also appear frequently to involve posting works on the Internet; and (4) private uses among a limited number of people. --- well now this sounds like it will add to the wealth of the public domain now doesn't it?
Download the full report.
Download the annotated version.
