The Chronicle Of Higher Ed. looks at ‘orphan works’, works of art and literature, whose creators cannot be identified.
This week, at the urging of prominent legal scholars, academic-library organizations, technology companies such as Google and Microsoft, and many other interested parties, the U.S. Copyright Office is holding a series of hearings to determine whether copyright law should change to allow for more liberal use of orphan works.
Scholars and others weighed in earlier this year, filing comments on the issue with the copyright office in anticipation of the hearings. The American Historical Association, for example, noted that orphan works had become a problem for scholars, “hampering the historian’s ability to work with the raw materials of history.”
The problem with “orphans”
The Economist reported on an interesting case of a “missing” author a couple of years ago: “Quest Fulfilled” (Aug 28, 2003) . One wonders how hard some publishers (or google) will search for authors after they’ve been granted some form of permission to use things that are “orphaned”.