"Orphan Works"

Orphan works are works (images/photos, letters, books, works of art, and others) that are still formally protected by copyright, but where a potential user—scholar, teacher, artist, publisher or other person or institution—is unable to clear rights because a) there is no copyright information associated with the work; b) the information is inadequate or inaccurate; or c) attempts to contact possible rights holders have proved futile (no one at last known address; publisher out of business, no responses to letters, etc.). [Source: College Art Association website - http://www.collegeart.org/ip/#OrphanWorks]

The US Copyright Office hosted two public roundtable discussions on the topic of orphan works in order to hear from various stakeholders and organizations that had requested space to speak at the table. These discussions took place in Washington, DC, on July 26 and 27, 2005, and in Berkeley, California, on the campus of the University of California, on August 2, 2005. Transcripts of the discussions are available as PDF files; audio recordings of the Berkeley session are downloadable as mp3 files.

Notice of Inquiry	Federal Register: January 26, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 16) [Notices] [Page 3739-3743]	http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr3739.html
Initial Comments	Library of Congress website (721 files)	http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/index.html
Reply Comments	Library of Congress website (146 files)	http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/
Notice of Public Roundtables	Federal Register: July 7, 2005 (Volume 70, Number 129) [Notices] [Page 39341-39343]	http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr39341.html
Roundtable	July 26, 2005, Washington, DC	http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/0726LOC.PDF
Roundtable	July 27, 2005, Washington, DC	http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/0727LOC.PDF
Roundtable	August 2, 2005, Berkeley, CA	http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/0802LOC.PDF
Roundtable [audio]	August 2, 2005, Berkeley, CA	http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/Orphan_Works_01.mp3 http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/Orphan_Works_02.mp3 http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/Orphan_Works_03.mp3 http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/Orphan_Works_04.mp3 http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/Orphan_Works_05.mp3
Final Report (with appendices)	Library of Congress website, January 2006	http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report-full.pdf
Testimony to House Subcommittee	March 8, 2006	http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat030806.html
Testimony to Senate Subcommittee	April 6, 2006	http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat040606.html
Orphan Works Act of 2006 HR 5439 IH	Introduced in House, May 22, 2006	http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.5439:
Testimony to House Subcommittee (Marybeth Peters)	March 13, 2008	http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat031308.html http://www.copyright.gov/video/testimony-3-13-08.html (webcast)
House Judiciary Committee Hearing on Orphan Works	March 13, 2008	http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-hearing-3-10-2008.pdf
Orphan Works Act of 2008 HR 5889 IH	Introduced in House, March 24, 2008	http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.5889:
Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 S 2913	April 24, 2008	http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.2913: http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:4:./temp/~c110GQgblP:: (September 27, 2008)

 

For a comprehensive guide to identifying and working with "orphan works," see the Society of American Archivists' "Orphan Works: Statement of Best Practices" (January 12, 2009; rev. June 17, 2009) at http://www.archivists.org/standards/OWBP-V4.pdf

 

Orphan Works: Statement of Best Practices

Society of American Archivists (SAA)

"This statement describes what professional archivists consider to be best practices regarding reasonable efforts to identify and locate rights holders. It is based on the authors' knowledge of the kinds of materials that are likely to qualify as orphan works and on their professional experience in trying to obtain rights information for such works in the past.

Although the statement focuses on unpublished materials because these are the types of materials that are usually found in archives, the authors recognize that many of the techniques that are useful in identifying rights holders for unpublished materials may also be useful in identifying and locating rights holders of published materials." (January 12, 2009; rev. June 17, 2009)

 

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Note to readers: Over time, a number of urls cited on this page have been changed, removed, or lost. I have tried to find the original materials mentioned in the link, often resorting to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

The first edition of this site appeared on March 22, 1996