Showing posts with label orphan works legislation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label orphan works legislation. Show all posts

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Google, Authors, Will Need To Rethink Digital Book Settlement; Intellectual Property Watch, 3/23/11

Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch; Google, Authors, Will Need To Rethink Digital Book Settlement:

"In his conclusion, Chin said that objectors, including the US government have said that “many of the concerns raised in the objections would be ameliorated if the ASA were converted from an opt-out settlement to an opt-in settlement.” He urged the parties “to consider revising the ASA accordingly.”"

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

[OpEd] Free That Tenor Sax; New York Times, 8/22/10

[OpEd] New York Times; Free That Tenor Sax:

"For jazz fans, nothing could be more tantalizing than the excerpts made available by the National Jazz Museum in Harlem of newly discovered recordings from the 1930s and ’40s. Nearly 1,000 discs containing performances by masters like Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Billie Holiday and the long-neglected Herschel Evans suddenly re-emerged when the son of the audio engineer, William Savory, sold them to the museum.

The museum is doing its best to clean up and digitize the recordings. But because of the way copyright laws work, excerpts may be all that fans can hear for some time. The museum paid for the discs, but cannot distribute the music until it has found a way to compensate the estates of the musicians, many of which may be very difficult to track down after all these decades."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22sun3.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=copyright&st=cse

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

How Big An Issue Are Orphan Works?; TechDirt.com, 7/12/10

Mike Masnick, TechDirt.com; How Big An Issue Are Orphan Works?:

"For a few years now, there's been an effort underway to pass "orphan works" legislation that would help deal with the massive number of works that are clearly covered by copyright, but for which no copyright holder can be found at all. Even the US Copyright Office, who normally only believes that copyright law should go in one direction (i.e., more), has come out in favor of orphan works legislation. Of course, as copyright experts like William Patry have long pointed out, the "problem" of orphan works is a self-created problem. Prior to taking away the requirement for registering to get a copyright, there really wasn't an orphan works problem, because (1) the copyright holders were registered and (2) most other works fell into the public domain, as they were either not registered, or the registration was not renewed. So, a better fix would be to go back to requiring such "formalities" (even if it goes against the sadly out of date Berne Convention rules).

In the meantime, though, since that doesn't seem likely, many are pushing for such orphan works laws. Unfortunately, there has been a lot of blatant misinformation spread around against orphan works legislation, who insist that it's really a way for companies to use works without paying for them. Of course, the various proposals for orphan works laws make it clear this is not the case. They all require the potential user to conduct a very real and very serious search for the copyright holder. You can't just declare the the copyright holder can't be found.

Of course, another complaint against orphan works legislation is that orphan works really aren't much of a problem, as they're somewhat "rare." How rare are they? Well, Michael Scott points us to a report trying to quantify the number of orphan works in Europe alone. The numbers are pretty impressive..."

Friday, October 9, 2009

Google's Sergey Brin lashes out at critics of $125m book deal; Guardian, 10/9/09

Bobbie Johnson, Guardian; Google's Sergey Brin lashes out at critics of $125m book deal:

"Google co-founder Sergey Brin has hit out at critics who derailed the company's $125m deal with American publishers to give it the right to digitise millions of books...

In a column published in the New York Times, Brin - who founded the internet giant with Larry Page in 1998 - hit out at those objectors, called many of their accusations "myths" while dismissing other concerns as fantasy...

Brin's comments come a day after he came in for fierce criticism from Brewster Kahle, the founder of the non-profit Internet Archive, which has been working to secure a change in copyright law to help digitisation projects. In particular, the archive has been working to clarify the status of so-called "orphan" works - books whose copyright holder remains unknown - by pushing new legislation through the US Congress.

Under Google's proposal, the Californian internet company would have gained the exclusive right to sell advertising or access to orphan works - something Kahle felt was inappropriate.

"Many of us are objecting because we have been working together for years on the mass scanning of out-of-print books – and have worked to get books online for far longer than Google – and Google's 'settlement' could hurt our efforts," he wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. "A major part of our efforts have concentrated on changing the law so everyone would benefit."

"There is an alternative, and they know it — orphan works legislation — that up until the last session of Congress had been working its way through the house and senate. It was not perfect, but was getting close to what we need. Best yet, it passed one house — at least until Google effectively sideswiped the process with their settlement proposal."

In his editorial, Brin admitted that Google would have exclusive rights over such material, at least in the short term - but then suggested that Google's deal would actually help attempts to force through a legislative change.

"While new projects will not immediately have the same rights to orphan works, the agreement will be a beacon of compromise in case of a similar lawsuit, and it will serve as a precedent for orphan works legislation, which Google has always supported and will continue to support.""

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/09/google-books-brin

Friday, August 7, 2009

Library Organizations Urge DoJ To Take Proactive Role in Google Book Search Settlement; Library Journal, 8/6/09

Norman Oder via Library Journal; Library Organizations Urge DoJ To Take Proactive Role in Google Book Search Settlement:

Groups express concerns about pricing, composition of Book Rights Registry:

"Letter follows up on May meeting.

DoJ should treat settlement as consent decree.

OCA asks Google to request delay in hearing."

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6675219.html