[Coco] Help simplify copyright law for scholars, artists. Public comment period ends soon!

[bathory at maltedmedia.com]

We are all interested in CoCo orphanware here, it seems, and here's some entry into the discussion.

Dennis


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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