Orphan Works – A Potential UK solution
Benjamin White
Head of Intellectual Property, The British Library
13th April, 2010
Madrid, Spain
The British Library’s Perspective – Mass
Digitisation Programmes
4 million pages of 17th – 19th Century Newspapers
25 million pages of “out-of-copyright” books 1800
– 1900
2000 days of Sound Recordings
Turning the Pages – 20 + digitised treasures (Up
to 1940s)
26.5% Orphan Works after 20 years
Screen shot 2010-04-10 at 10.45.54.png
Online publishing of unique material
Marcel Fromenti (1886-1969).
Orphan Work from the V&A Museum
ICA Talks – 1980s
Evidence Base – Orphan Works
Sound recordings – depending on the type of
sound recordings the rate of Orphans Works will
vary.
Carnegie Mellon Universities published books
research: Orphan Works are at a rate of 31%.
ARROW Orphan Works study – 2010.
Existing UK Orphan Works Provisions
UK copyright law has the following limited provision:
Pre 1989;
Reasonable to assume author dead for 50 years;
Work older than 100 years;
Copyright owner unknown.
Digital Economy Bill - (Primary Legislation)
Clause 43 – Not limited to educational and cultural
bodies.
Secretary can by regulations provide for
“a licensing body or other person to do, or grant licences to
do, acts in relation to an orphan work.”
Digital Economy Bill – S.116A
Provisos:
1. Regulations shall provide for:
a) Deduction of administrative costs;
b) Period for which sums must be held;
c) Treatment of sums after that period – bona vacantia etc;
d) Onward obligations / regulations for recipients of a
licence from the secretary of state;
e) How to deal with the issue of an orphan work being
claimed.
Digital Economy Bill – S.116C
What is an Orphan Work?
Something that has been searched for diligently, and in
regards to which a notice has been published in a register.
The search should be reasonable and include
a) Licensing Bodies;
b) Associations of creators, publishers etc;
c) Systems of the works concerned;
d) Library catalogues;
e) Public Databases.
of the logical country most closely related to the work.
Digital Economy Bill – S.116D
Regulations to provide
a) Further details of the register;
b) Publicly available;
c) Rules around the removal of information in case the work
is no longer an orphan work.
The register to
a) Outline the diligent search steps;
Unless there are reasonable grounds for believing a diligent
search has already taken place.
Why did Clause 43 fail?
Broad coalition of vocal supporters – Museums, Libraries, BBC,
Collecting Societies, Trade Associations, Universities etc.
However:
1. Bill short on time due to general election?
2. C.43 also included extended collective licensing?
3. Orphan Work specific :
a) Not limited to non-commercial – BAPLA tabled an
exception in
the Lords.
b) Weak on attribution.
c) Stronger on protection of metadata relating to OW.
Gracias
ben.white@bl.uk