Orphan Works Bill Approved by House Subcommittee
By ARTINFO
Published: May 9, 2008
WASHINGTON,
D.C.—A House Judiciary subcommittee has approved a bill that would make
the use of orphan works — copyrighted materials whose owners cannot be
identified — substantially easier, Congressional Quarterly Today
reports. The Subcommittee on the Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual
Property approved HR 5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008, with a
manager's amendment by Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., who first
introduced the bill last month.
The bill seeks to limit the
potential liability of users of orphan works depending on whether they
qualify as good faith users. The criteria for this would mainly be the
completion of a thorough search to find the potential copyright holder
of a work before use. The search criteria necessitates the creation of
U.S. Copyright Office–certified databases that would list each work's
author, contact information, and an image or description of the work.
If a user was determined to have acted in good faith, he would be
exempt from statutory damages and legal fees if the owner of the work
was later found, though he would still be expected to pay "reasonable
compensation." Bad faith users would still be liable as they are today.
Many
artists, especially photographers and members of the Illustrators'
Partnership of America, oppose the legislation, saying it shifts the
onus from the user to the copyright holder. They also protest that the
search criterion will not adequately protect artists who have thousands
of images that may or may not be registered in specific Copyright
Office–certified databases.
Under the legislation, archives,
nonprofit educational institutions, and public broadcasting will
receive specialized protection from monetary liability if considered
good faith users. Rep. Berman's amendment includes museums in this
category as well.
A companion bill, S 2913, the Shawn Bentley
Orphan Works Act of 2008, was introduced in the Senate last month by
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. That bill was scheduled for a markup in the
Senate on May 8, but was put off until next Thursday, according to the
blog Photo Business News & Forum.
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