Orphan works legislation passes the U.S. Senate on Friday September 26, 2008!


On Friday September 26, 2008, the U.S. Senate passed S. 2913 by unanimous consent, i.e. not a single Senator objected to the legislation. Although not enough time was left for House passage of the legislation during 2008, the Senate passage was a major blow for opponents of the legislation that had undertaken an all out assault to defeat the legislation. Again, not one U.S. Senator objected to the passage of S. 2913.

Orphan works legislation is an issue of growing interest in Congress and among copyright owners and copyright users. Orphan works legislation is expected to be enacted as federal law by the U.S. Congress as early as the summer of 2009. It is an issue that I have been involved in since 2005 when I was a Congressional staffer responsible for copyright issues on the House Judiciary Committee. I drafted one of the letters to the Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters by then Intellectual Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Smith of Texas asking the Register to undertake a comprehensive study of orphan works. As Counsel to this Subcommittee, I was responsible for the original version of the legislation that was introduced in 2006. After the Register released her suggested legislation language in January 2006, I put together the first Congressional hearing on this issue in March 2005. You can see me sitting to the right side of the Chairman (your left) on the archive of the hearing webcast. After the hearing concluded, I hosted numerous negotiating sessions at the direction of Chairman Smith. These negotiating sessions were attended by interested parties representing numerous copyright owners and user groups and were held as frequently as twice a week over a several month period. The negotiations resulted in substantive changes to the draft legislation originally proposed by the Copyright Office.

After these changes were agreed to, legislation was formally introduced as the Orphan Works Act of 2006, or H.R. 5439, on May 22, 2006. The latest versions of the legislation, the Orphan Works Act of 2008 (H.R. 5889 and S. 2913), are based upon the 2006 version with some changes. Use the links above to learn more about the three versions of the legislation.

The most recent Congressional hearing on orphan works legislation was held on March 13, 2008 in the Intellectual Property Subcommittee of the U.S House of Representatives Judiciary Committee. The most recent Congressional action on orphan works legislation were unanimous voice votes (individual Member votes were not recorded) by the entire Senate Judiciary Committee on May 15, 2008 and the House Intellectual Property Subcommittee on May 7, 2008.

This website is focused on the orphan works policy issue and related legislation. The various versions of orphan works legislation have been strongly supported by some, and strongly opposed by others. As is the case with most public policy issues, you are better off deciding for yourself whether to support or oppose orphan works legislation after reviewing the text, rather than relying solely upon the statements of others.

And if you can’t already tell from quality of the graphics on this website, I’m an attorney, not a graphic artist.

Joe Keeley