From: carolyn <sweetwater(a)sierratel.com>
To: COPYRIGHT-L(a)rootsweb.com
Subject: [COPYRIGHT] "ORPHAN WORKS"-US Copyright Office Invites Public
Comment
Passing this on from an archivist list in California-------Carolyn Feroben
=================
US Copyright Office Invites Public Comment on "Orphan Works." Deadline
March 25!
To submit a comment, or learn more, visit
http://OrphanWorks.org
The Copyright Office is considering rule changes that would make using
copyrighted material much simpler for academics, artists, and
musicians. Specifically, they want to address the problem of "orphan
works," copyrighted works for which the rights holder is difficult or
impossible to locate. Right now there's a window of opportunity to make
the copyright system work better for everyone.
http://OrphanWorks.org
Dealing with orphan works can be an enormous headache for artists,
academics, filmmakers, graphic designers, and musicians. It can be
impossible to find out if a particular work is still under copyright or
not. And even when people would happily pay to use a copyrighted photo,
passage, or video clip, it's often impossible (or extremely costly) to
find the copyright holder. When this happens, *everybody* loses.
Artists can't realize their creative vision, academics can't clearly
communicate their ideas, and copyright holders don't get paid. Even
worse, important pieces of our culture get needlessly locked away.
Right now, the US Copyright Office is asking for public comment on the
"orphan works" problem, so now's our chance to make the system work
better. They've specifically asked for comments from people who have
run up against the problem of trying to clear a potentially copyrighted
work -- either for use in a new creative effort or simply to make the
work available to the public once again. If you have a story like this,
it's essential you make your voice heard.
A coalition of advocacy groups including Public Knowledge
(
http://publicknowledge.org) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation
(
http://eff.org/) have set up a site to facilitate the process of
submitting a comment:
http://OrphanWorks.org/
And if you haven't had such an experience but know others who may have,
it's essential that you let them know before the period for public
comment ends on March 25.
Visit
OrphanWorks.org to pass this information on to a friend:
http://OrphanWorks.org/
Thanks so much for your time, and we hope you can support this exciting
campaign to make our cultural heritage more useful and accessible to
everyone.
Sincerely,
OrphanWorks.org Team
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