RFC Deadline Looms For "Orphan Works" copy

psychonaut writes "As previously reported on Slashdot, the US Copyright Office is currently reviewing the law as it applies to "orphan works" and "abandonware". The question is how to treat works (books, films, software, etc.) for which the copyright owner cannot be found so that permission can be granted to republish or create derivative works. "The issue is whether orphan works are being needlessly removed from public access and their dissemination inhibited. If no one claims the copyright in a work," they write, "it appears likely that the public benefit of having access to the work would outweigh whatever copyright interest there might be." The Copyright Office has been soliciting comments from the public since 26 January 2005. Now, as their 25 March deadline draws nearer, the EFF, along with freeculture.org and Public Knowledge, have teamed up to produce a website,Orphan Works, which gives some background on the issue and makes it easy to submit comments directly to the Copyright Office." And while you're at, contribute to the EFF. Good organization.

Re:Other copyright issues

[Anonymous Coward]

The so called disney effect (the extending of copyright periods after authors death, being done just before disney stuff reaches public domain) really needs to be fixed.

It is fixed. The Constitution is pretty clear that copyrights have to be time-limited. The Supreme Court has ruled that that doesn't really mean anything, because Congress can extend them arbitrarily, but unfortunately, that's the Supreme Court. By definition, there is no higher appeal. "Fixing" the loophole would pretty much require some kind of "No, we really meant it, guys" amendment to the Constitution, but fat chance of that. The people with the power to amend the Constitution are too busy worrying about the total destruction of society that will obviously and inevitably result from giving same-sex couples the tax privileges currently reserved for heterosexuals.

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[Ubergrendle]

With the way copyright laws are going, we're lucky we see anything from the 20th century in the public domain. If the latest new copyright laws were grandfathered (e.g. 75 years after death of creator), we'd be looking at the 1850s.

"Get your 100% royalty free cotton-gin blueprints right here! For an unlimited time only!!!!"

Re:What's wrong with the current system?

[Cylix]

I don't believe that is the issue.

It's simply cost prohibitive for the little guy to locate the rights to an obscure piece of footage or film. (two examples I'm familiar with)

Say for instance, you find a nice picture you want to incorporate and maybe it looks quite old, but maybe its unclear whether copyright has expired.

It seems more to be a CYA directive and would ease some tension when using /most likely/ interesting works that have been locked away by age.

Right now, it's not even an option to use such things even if the owner or estate owner has long since been gone. Simply because you just don't know and you probably can't afford the time or investment in something like that.

This sorta implies that older copyrights would have to be protected much like trademark. You can just buy it and forget it. (Now you have to catalogue it and forget it)

So if you did the leg work and came up with nothing you would have some defense in court should an issue arrise.

For someone with not-so-unlimited resources tracking down something like that can be tough. In the end, if you are cautious about being sued, you can't use it.

I believe the idea is that if you pursue a reasonable course of action to attempt to locate the owner and find nothing then it can be classified as abandonware.

Re:Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[shimmin]

Disney. Song of the the South. Also much of their WWII-era propoganda stuff. Now all-but-buried because it has become politically embarrassing.

Re:But it's broken

[LetterJ]

The "system which has served us well for over 100 years" isn't a single, constant system reaching back to the Constitution. Rather, it's mutated quite a bit, especially in the last 30 years. To defend most of the major parameters of modern copyright is really to defend the changes of the last 30 years.

Up until then, you had to specifically register anything you wanted copyrighted. This ensured that the work that the "vast majority of people who produce IP" to make money from their works were protected, while allowing everything else to be public domain (the stuff created for reasons other than money). For most of the time before 1976, you also had to renew that copyright periodically to keep it.

Essentially, for the first 200 years of American copyright, making money from IP was an active process: deliberately file for copyright, include specific notice on all published copies, renew to continue copyright, etc.

What we have now is a passive process: everything is automatically copyrighted, notice doesn't need to be included, no renewals are needed and your family gets to automatically keep these passive rights long after you're dead.

Those 2 systems, while both called "copyright", have little in common as far as their approach, intent and results.

Re:Why doesn't Slashdot start a PAC?

[Guanix]

There's already IPAC [ipaction.org], which supported several candidates financially in the 2004 US election.

Oracle does it

[mangu]

Are there many real-world examples of corporations saying things like, "Well, we can't be bothered to print up another hundred copies of that textbook just so your students can buy it.

I don't know about textbooks, but I do have a real-world example in software. I tried to buy a copy of Oracle's Pro*Fortran and they wouldn't sell it to me, because it's "deprecated". I also tried to buy a copy of the game "Sorcerers Get All the Girls" from the original publisher and they refused to sell it to me. Fortunately, in this case I got a decent warez, but if you ever wrote any program in Fortran to access an Oracle data base, and now want to support it, Oracle's official answer to your problem is "Fuck You".

Berne Convention

[hacksoncode]

RTFA

The whole reason that copyrights no longer have to be registered in the US is the Berne convention, which requires that signatory countries may not impose registration requirements on foreign nationals in order to obtain copyright protection.

Since there's no way to acertain without finding the copyright holder whether that person is a foreign national or not, even if we required registration of copyrighted works as a way to get around this, it still would violate the treaty.

About the only solution would be one similar to that cited in Candadian law, where the Copyright Office can determine that a work is orphaned, set a compulsary license fee, and collect it in case the author is ever found. They've granted a whole 125 of these licenses to date.

Which doesn't really solve the problem at all...

Re:Part 2: What I find _wrong_ about it

[Moraelin]

1. It wouldn't hurt Marvel that much to keep January's Spiderman available for another month, if that's the problem. They can easily either print enough for a year in the first place, or just let someone get those comics scanned over the web for the full fee for a 20 years, or whatever. Again, I've stated no restrictions as to _how_ those works should still be available.

Frankly, neither of the above costs a fortune. If old Dilbert or Calvin and Hobbes comics can still be viewed online for a minor fee, I fail to see why the same couldn't apply to old Marvel comics. No, really, what would be their loss there? If anything, it would be an extra (if small) source of profit.

And if even that's not worth their effort, then what's their loss anyway? That someone might not buy today, on account that in a few decades they'll get them for free? Somehow I doubt that that many people are willing to wait that long.

2. I think it's already possible to cover characters and settings as trademarks, rather than copyright.

E.g., in Marvel's case, witness the recent lawsuit against the makers of City Of Heroes. The issue there was _not_ one of copyright. It was entirely over trademarks.

E.g., even if half of Disney's stuff finally went public domain, you still couldn't make your own Mickey Mouse cartoons. Because Mickey is a trademark. You could, however, copy some old movies that Disney basically wants to bury.