[SCC_Active_Members] Heads Up - Copyright Law and Orphan Works

[Paul McJones]

I wasn't very precise in my previous message, but I would clearly ask 
for enough to avoid a "dark archive".  I had said "for the purposes of 
preservation and historical/educational use" -- that would need to be 
turned into legalese allowing a variety of nonprofit uses.



H.M. Gladney wrote:
> Asking only for preservation permission would drive one towards a "dark
> archive"--i.e., a collection subset that could not be freely disseminated.  
> 
> This possibility is not only unattractive, but is likely to incur
> significant extra administrative costs compared to a repository that makes
> all its preserved holdings available.  It further is a potential source of
> infringement litigation in the case of a "dark" holding that is mistakenly
> made available.
> 
> I.e., in my view, CHM should not endorse this possibility.
> 
> Cheerio, HMG 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org
> [mailto:scc_active-bounces at computerhistory.org] On Behalf Of Paul McJones
> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 3:14 PM
> To: Sellam Ismail
> Cc: Lee Courtney; scc_active at computerhistory.org
> Subject: Re: [SCC_Active_Members] Heads Up - Copyright Law and Orphan Works
> 
> For the purposes of preservation and historical/educational use, would it be
> necessary to ask that these "orphaned" works pass into the public domain?
> Perhaps there is a less final status that would suffice for us, such as
> saying that it would become legal to copy for purposes of preservation, etc.
> If the original copyright holder later spoke up (before the copyright term
> expired), he/she could still try to go after commercial users.
> 
> I'm not sure if my idea makes legal sense, but the idea is to ask for as
> little as possible...
> 
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> Sellam Ismail wrote:
> 
>>>I ran across a pointer to a request from Senate Judicary 
>>>Committee that the Library of Congress study impact of 
>>>orphaned works WRT to current copyright law. ... 
> 
>