Orphan Works Bill Approved by House Subcommittee
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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