Abandoning the Orphans: An Open Access Approach to Hostage Works by Lydia Pallas Loren :: SSRN

"The lengthening of the duration of copyright protection and the elimination of copyright registration formalities have contributed to the rise of so-called orphan works: works that remain subject to copyright law but whose owners cannot be identified and located by someone who wishes to make use of the work in a manner that requires permission of the copyright owner. In this Article I examine one of the root causes of the inability to address the orphan work problem: the metaphor of the “orphan” itself. I propose that these works should not be viewed as orphans, but rather as “hostages” — constrained in their movement by the restricting combination of the set of rules established by copyright law and the absence of the owner who could release the works from what binds them in their confinement."