Orphan works legislation passes the U.S.
Senate on Friday September 26, 2008!
{No orphan works
legislation has been reintroduced in 2009 or
2010}
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 same version
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 on September 26, 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