Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) and California Copyright Conference (CCC) Joint Position Paper on Orphan Work

The full text of the position paper (excerpted below) is available online here

Two comparable bills which threaten to erode fundamental protections for copyright authors and owners, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 (S. 2913) and the Orphan Works Act of 2008 (H.R. 5889), were introduced on April 24, 2008 by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA) respectively.  The bills encourage copyright infringement and objectionable uses across the full spectrum of protected artistic works.  This legislation is being introduced at a time of broad public and government awareness that creators of original works, and the copyright industries which bring their products to market, are in many instances struggling for survival against a backdrop of massive and unprecedented infringement.  The bills strip authors and owners of basic legal remedies to combat copyright infringement.  In particular, they limit otherwise available remedies for stemming infringement, such as recovery of attorney’s fees and statutory damages, and actually offer incentives to unauthorized users by insulating them from detection and accountability.  Under the proposed legislation, if an author should learn of an infringing use, he would have to undertake a time consuming and expensive determination by a court as to whether or not the infringer took sufficient steps to locate the author and whether the compensation requested for the unauthorized use was reasonable.

The Orphan Works bills are deeply flawed and would have serious unintended, but far reaching adverse effects.  We recommend that the U.S. Copyright Office be directed to (i) activate an online version of its Address File system of records in which authors and owners can update their records and provide full contact information and licensing submission procedures; (ii) extend its registration and histories databases to include all of its copyright records prior to 1978 to facilitate full public record searching; and (iii) make scanned images of copyright documents available on-demand to the public free of charge or on a cost recovery only basis.  These administrative tools will bring proposed users and owners closer together, without resorting to harmful legislation.

We urge you to contact your elected representative and let them know your position on these bills.

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Cathy Merenda
President, AIMP