[Advocacy Advisors] Federal Register RfC on orphan works

Thu Feb 13 13:30:30 UTC 2014

I recently joined this list specifically because of orphan works
legislation.  I recently wrote an opinion piece on public domain for The
Signpost (user:Kosboot) and I saw a similar plea on the WMF blog.  Though
I'm only a lowly editor, I would hope WMF would take a stand on the orphan
works issue.  Part of the technique of negotiation is that you ask for
more, knowing that the result will be less than what you ask for.  So I
think WMF should be really bold and ask for something like treating orphan
works as if public domain if no one comes forward.  I think it would be
wise to parse some of Maria Pallante's words (she's the US Register of
Copyright) to see what is her thinking on the matter (she seems to be more
liberal than most had expected).

In any case, I'd be happy to work on such a project.

Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts,
Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
blog:  http://www.nypl.org/blog/author/44   Twitter: @kos2
 Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-TALK ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
- My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions -

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 4:06 AM, Mathias Schindler <
mathias.schindler at wikimedia.de> wrote:

> 2014-02-13 1:51 GMT+01:00 Luis Villa <lvilla at wikimedia.org>:
> > On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 2:21 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari at wikimedia.org>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> Hey guys,
> >> The U.S. Federal Register is doing an RfC and Public Roundtable on the
> >> issue of orphan works. I would really like for us to take this as an
> >> opportunity to push for U.S. adoption of the "rule of the shorter
> term", as
> >> this would solve our URAA problems on Commons and free millions of
> orphan
> >> foreign works in the U.S.
> >
> >
> > I had been aware of this, but hadn't raised it here because most of the
> > orphan works proposals I'm aware of are a lot like fair use - nice(ish)
> for
> > lots of users, but not giving us the certainty we like to have when
> > creating/distributing materials. But a rule of shorter term proposal
> would
> > definitely give address one part of the orphan works problem in a way
> that
> > would give us the certainty we like/need.
>
> Greetings from Europe, where we can say "been there, done that" with
> respect to Orphan Works legislation
> (
> http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:299:0005:0012:EN:PDF
> ).
>
> In short, the EU orphan works directive does not benefit Wikipedia for
> many reasons. First, we are not among the priviledged institutions
> (Article 1) and the permitted uses of orphan works are far too narrow
> to help open content projects (Article 6). On top of that, the
> dilligent search procedure as required by Article 3 is incompatible
> with the idea of mass digitisation and the possibility to end the
> orphan work status (Article 5) is fundamentally against the idea of a
> lasting commons of works that can be built upon.
>
> The consultation work by the US Federal Register should have a close
> look at the way Europe did it.
>
> I strongly recommend participation in this RfC by US based open
> content projects with fundamentally different needs than, for example,
> google or a public library.
>
> Mathias
>
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