This article recently posted by my friend Mahesh in his blog Splat, expresses grave concerns over this shocking bill called Orphan Works Act (2006) that might actually allow US citizens to legally steal copyrighted works by others around the world.
The bill which was introduced on May 22nd, 2006 in the House of Representatives, US …
seeks to amend the Title 17 of United States Code that would allow for remedies in case the copyright owner cannot be found. The particular code gives the people the rights over their intellectual works.
If the implications are correct, this means it’ll grant indemnity to all US citizens for stealing works from artists, musicians and the likes by shielding themselves with this clause. All they’ve to do is claim that the creator couldn’t be found and hence it’s an orphaned work. Thus the Act will allow people to use these orphaned work for commercial purposes and they may not be sued later by the rightful copyright holders !!
The conclusion reached by Mahesh after some serious research states that …
the act would defy the intellectual property of all artists who are not US citizens, as they have no means of registering their works at the US Copyright Office. Entities in US would be able to make use of works made by non-US citizens for commercial purposes and not pay these copyright holders – and yet they would not be seen as criminals by the US law.?
Now this is some serious issue to muse on. What are your opinions on this ?
I don’t think it is as large a problem as what some may think.
Claims made in court require evidence to make them viable. Therefore, in such situations as this, the defendant must prove that they’re research could not locate the patent holder. The quality of this research will obviously affect the judge’s decision.
For a number of years musical compositions have been allowed an exclusion called compulsory license. The new orphan works legislation will extend to this to all copyrightable works. The problem is that compulsory is largely unworkable already. The existing rates would never cover the legal costs incured in an infringement lawsuit. The proposed legislation
would also weaken the exisiting copyright protection by striping the ability to recover legal feee while adding the potential for paying the infringers legal fees. Before compulsory license is granted to all works it’s got to be fixed. How about a searchable database like Canada has, or a procedure for filing a claim like exising procedures for other unclaimed funds? It seems unfair to portray an simple license problem as an infringement lawsuit in order to receive an honest royalty payment.
Where fame or reputation was involved a fair settlement would surely be difficult. As a victim of this kind of loophole, I would hate to see other artists go through what I have gone through with my orphan work.