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Saving the Artistic Orphans

Date: September 20, 2004
Author: Katie Dean
QUOTE: ...older books, films and music -- are often out of print and considered no longer commercially viable, but are still locked up under copyright. Locating copyright owners is a formidable challenge because Congress no longer requires that owners register or renew their copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office.

ABSTRACT: Under 1998 changes to copyright law the authors of creative works such as book and movies automatically receive copyright protection for their lives plus 70 years. When the authors or their heirs cannot be identified or located, however, rights to these cultural treasures are in limbo ("orphan works") and in effect are lost to the culture (neither actively made available nor reverted to public domain status). Copyright activists are working to give make orphan works public domain, but publishers (and perhaps the precedents set in the 2003 Eldred v. Ashcroft decision) are opposed to this change.

--- Dan Doernberg

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