Julianna Yau’s blog

Today, I was informed that the Orphaned Works bill in the US has been resurrected. One of the problematic aspects of the bill is its assumptions that any unregistered work can be considered orphaned. This is a huge change to the way copyright currently works, and is a chilling proposed solution to the problem of locating a copyright holder (which I mentioned yesterday).

Some things to consider:

1. Currently, all works in the US (like in Canada) are automatically copyrighted to the creator. No registration is required. This greatly reduces the financial and administrative burden of some creators, and increases the financial and administrative burden of creators who appropriate/creatively reuse work. It also increases the financial and administrative burden of any other party who wants to use a copyrighted work in a context outside of fair use.
2. The Orphaned Works bill proposes that works which are not registered will be considered orphaned, and therefore not be protected by copyright or moral rights. This will allow greater access to works outside of the context of fair use, but swing the financial and administrative burden to the creators.
3. The cost of copyright registration in the US is currently $45 per work. For me to register the copyright in the US (if I were working from the US) for my modest collection of 27 sculpture would cost $1,215. For some, this could be seen as part of the cost of producing work and/or securing their ability to further generate income from their work. However, this would be impossible for artists who generate any amount of income based on a low overhead.
4. Registration of copyright in the US requires the submission of a copy of the work. This is not the case in Canada (and, oddly, Canada’s registration fee is substantially higher at $65 per work for most types of work).

A quick search on Google shows that this is has been a concern in the US for some time. As Mark Simon noted, this is also happening in Europe (although I am having a difficult time tracking down information about that, amidst all the US content).

Locating the creator of a work is certainly an issue, but these proposed changes are not the solution… primarily because the solution shouldn’t create a whole host of problems for those who used to be protected.

Related posts

• Recent Art Law Blog posts (0)
• Yoav Mazeh: Fixation in Copyright - part three: my thoughts (0)
• Waiting For Copyright Legislation… (0)
• Visual artists on copyright reform (0)
• Reform of the Copyright Act - DAMI©’s platform (0)