My colleagues have written supportively of the orphan works proposals developed by the Copyright Office and the bills in Congress. I'm a little more uneasy, but haven't turned my full attention to why. It seems that the proposals are perfectly reasonable for easily searchable texts or other works with authors and titles. Less easily searchable are works such as sculpture, photographs, and so on. These categories were perhaps seen as a niche. But the niche seems to be growing. Concerns with the legislation have been raised by textile manufacturers. The problem they face is rampant copying of their designs in Asia and other places. In the copyright process, the copyright information is stripped from the designs. They are then reimported into the United States, where they become... orphans. Potentially proliferating copies of copies of copies, each of which itself becomes an orphan. Problematic. We'll have to see what emerges.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 2:14 PM | Access: Commons, Fair Use, Orphan Works, Public Domain, Legislation and Legislators

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