Orphan Works & Mass Digitization: Obstacles & Opportunities - Keynote Address

[Use the link to access the keynote address made by Maria A. Pallante, Register of Copyrights and Director U.S. Copyright Office on the occasion of the David Nelson lecture given on behalf of the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology and the Berkeley Digital Copyright Project, Berkeley School of Law. “The Berkeley Digital Library Copyright Project aims to investigate copyright obstacles faced by libraries and other like-minded organizations in their efforts to realize the full potential of present and future digital library initiatives. Our efforts are concentrated on both the obstacles themselves and the range of possible legal, technological, social, and market-based solutions to overcome them. Among other issues, we are specifically examining challenges with respect to orphan works, library privileges, digital lending, and metadata ownership. We are also examining a full range of possible solutions to some or all of these issues, including private ordering solutions, licensing, legislative reform, or the application of existing doctrines, such as the United States' fair use provision. We intend to be responsive to new legal developments as they arise and will add other specific issues to our research agenda as needed.” The keynote address opens as follows: “...I would like  to revisit some of the early points of tension in the orphan debate and the shifting  assumptions about the problem, and then provide some insight into the goals of the  Copyright Office during the Congressional session. I am aware that many people in this room have studied, debated, litigated, and negotiated issues relating to orphan works,  and I worked closely with some of you in my own work.  There are, of course, some  differences of opinion that we will need to reconcile if we are to move from holding  patterns to progress on orphan works.  That said, I do think we have a significant  amount of agreement not only in this room, but also in the broader copyright community, to a degree that simply was not the case before.  For example: 1)  We seem to have  general agreement that in the case of a true orphan, where there is no copyright owner and therefore no beneficiary of the copyright term, it does not further the objectives of  the copyright system to deny use of the work, sometimes for decades... “