Advocacy
Orphan Copyright Update
CAA has joined many other scholarly associations and research libraries to advocate for legislative change in copyright law regarding “orphan” copyrights—works still in copyright for which no rights holder can be found. To read more about CAA’s ongoing efforts, please visit www.collegeart.org/orphan-works.Approach
CAA, along with many other organizations, endorses the proposal on orphan copyrights by Copyright Clearance Initiative (CCI) of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic at American University’s Washington College of Law, which considers the problem of orphan works to be significant and recommends the following approach to a solution:
- That orphan works be made available to users after a reasonable-efforts search.
- That orphan works may be of any age, including recent works, and may be either published or unpublished works.
- That uses of orphan works should be available to all types of uses and users, not just nonprofit or scholarly users.
- That the solution should not create new administrative burdens or copyright formalities.
- That should a copyright owner later be found, remedies and penalties be available, but limited to modest financial compensation, without injunctive relief.
Work in Progress
CAA wishes to thank the many members who answered our call for information and personal experiences with using orphan copyrights. The response was immense, varied, and extremely valuable. Many of your comments were cited in our Comments on orphan works filed with the U.S. Copyright Office in late March. CAA’s document has been cited widely and was mentioned by name by Jule Sigall, the associate registrar for copyrights in charge of the orphan works proceeding, in his public remarks about the Comments process. An April 18 article in the Chicago Tribune on orphan copyrights also quoted CAA.
On May 9, CAA joined a number of other groups to file Reply Comments on this matter with the Copyright Office. This document further strengthens and articulates the approach that we think best serves our communities of artists and scholars, both the creators and users of copyrighted material.
Later this year (probably this summer), the Copyright Office will draft a report studying the issues, perhaps proposing one or more legislative approaches to address the concerns raised by the commenting parties. Over the summer, the office will conduct hearings in at least three major cities to examine the question further.
ARL Teleconference
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) hosted a phone teleconference, entitled “Orphan Works: Issues and Solution,” on May 2, 2005, cosponsored by ARL, the Medical Library Association, and the American Association of Law Libraries. More than five hundred people listened to the discussion, including many CAA members, who were specially invited to call in. The audio transmission of the teleconference can be found at www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/orphanedworks/teleconf/player.html.
The presenters—Jonathan Band, legal counsel to the Library Copyright Alliance and partner at Morrison & Foerster; Jeffrey Cunard, legal counsel to CAA and partner at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP; Peter Jaszi, professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law and director of the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic; and Prue Adler, associate executive director of the Federal Relations and Information Policy program at ARL—addressed a wide range of issues concerning orphan works, including: What are orphan works? What problems have users faced when trying to use orphan works? Is this a problem faced by a diverse range of constituencies? Are there implications for the conduct of research and education? Does this issue of orphan works present a challenge to digitization initiatives? How can this issue be addressed through legislation, and what are some of the key elements of a legislative solution?