The issue of orphan works has made its way back to Washington’s attention. The House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property held a hearing March 13th to gather some follow-up testimony from a small group of rightsholder and content user representatives before reintroducing legislation to address the problem of using orphan works without authorization. Orphan works are those copyrighted works for which no rightsholder can be identified or located.
Subcommittee chairman Howard Berman made it quite clear that he intends to introduce new orphan works legislation shortly and would like to receive the cooperation of interested parties such as those who gave testimony on March 13. It is likely the new bill will look very similar to The Orphan Works Act of 2006, which was proposed and received substantial bipartisan support, but was never enacted, in the last Congress.
Given concerns previously expressed by some visual artist groups, the IP Subcommittee will probably make a few revisions to the language. Photographers, textile designers and graphic designers have argued that, unlike written content, their materials usually do not contain rightsholder information through no fault of the applicable rightsholders, and therefore orphan works legislation must address their unique infringement challenges.
Since this is an election year, and re-election campaigns will be in full swing by late summer, new orphan works legislation will probably be fast-tracked to reach the floor of the House by mid-May.