Orphan Works

When you can't find copyright holders, copyright becomes a quagmire. Let's fix it.

For designers, academics, artists, musicians, and filmmakers, using copyrighted works can be a huge headache. It can be impossible to find out if a particular work is still under copyright or not. And even when people would happily pay to use a copyrighted photo, passage, or video clip, it's often impossible (or extremely costly) to find the copyright holder. When this happens, everybody loses. Artists can't realize their creative vision, academics can't clearly communicate their ideas, and copyright holders don't get paid. Even worse, important pieces of our culture get needlessly locked away.

Right now, the US Copyright Office is asking for public comment on the "orphan works" problem, so now's our chance to make the system work better. The Copyright Office has specifically asked for comments from people who have run up against the problem of trying to clear a potentially copyrighted work -- either for use in a new creative effort or simply to make the work available to the public once again. If you have a story like this, it's essential you make your voice heard. Use the form on your right to submit comments directly to the Copyright Office - you type, and we'll take care of the formatting and submission.

Read more at http://www.orphanworks.org

Problem is its not just Orphaned works but the whole licensing scheme.

There was a tv show a number of years back called WKRP It was a sitcom about a radio station. There were 90 episodes (for those of you counting there were only 80 of the Original Star Trek episodes.)

It was a huge hit when it went to syndication but alas we'll most likely not ever be able to see it on DVD. The reason?
It was a radio station and thoughout the station there were monitors so everyone could hear what was on the air ( very common in radio stations) coming from those speakers was the music that was being played "On Air" probably 10 songs at least per episode. to release a DVD they have to license all of that music again. Keep in mind most of the songs played were what was being played on the radio at that time, (the hits) So as a result to license those tunes they will spend most likely 10,000+ per song to license. based on $10k, you are most likely looking at $100,000 per episode to license the music. It pretty much makes it an economic impossibility to ever release a DVD with the original music, without substituting the music.

One of the neat things about the WKRP was the way they tied the music to what was happening. So substitutions will lose a lot of the "hidden humor" of the series.

Wired has a great story on this: http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,66696,00.html

They need to ask the public "What can we do to make copyright better?"

Why don't they just pay someone to re-record the portions of the songs they used?

Because the lyrics are probably copyrighted too.

The arguement is that the folks want to see it as they remembered it... kindofa "historical/nostalgia" slant involved here.

Having indies come in and do covers of the song clips ain't really the same. (But, it IS a neat idea!)