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Library Copyright Alliance Files Comments on Orphan WorksA group of five library associations filed comments with the U.S. Copyright Office March 25 supporting a change to copyright law to address orphan works—copyrighted works whose owners are difficult or impossible to locate.“The inability to locate copyright owners to clear the rights in their works prevents libraries from providing broad public access to the information in their collections, and prevents library patrons from making transformative uses of these works,” wrote the Library Copyright Alliance, which includes the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the American Association of Law Libraries, the Special Libraries Association, and the Medical Library Association. Problems with orphan works affect large research libraries as well as local public libraries, the groups noted, citing dozens of examples ranging from a university library prevented from digitizing hundreds of volumes for preservation to a public library unable to locate copyright information for a collection of local historic photographs. They also pointed out several factors that have contributed to a worsening problem in recent years: extended copyright terms and an expanded universe of works covered by copyright law, digital technology that enables public dissemination of works that previously were only available to scholars who could physically visit a library, and a more complicated rights-clearance process due to the consolidation of copyright-industry companies. “The Copyright Act must be amended to address the orphan work problem,” the alliance concluded, suggesting that the best solution “is to defuse the landmine—to limit the remedies when a user has engaged in a reasonable, but ultimately unsuccessful, search for the copyright owner.” Such a fix is “sufficiently broad to address the problem but not so broad as to ensure its political demise,” they wrote, and it would not place burdens on the Copyright Office or copyright owners. A full record of comments is available at the Copyright Office website. Posted April 1, 2005. |
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