House IP Subcommittee Chairman Lamar Smith is offering a “manager’s amendment” to the Copyright Modernization Act. If enacted, a portion of that amendment would have a direct impact on when the "Orphan Works Act" portion of the bill applies photographic images and other works of visual art.
For pictorial, graphic and sculptural works, the amendment delays the effective date of the orphan works provisions until the U.S. Copyright Office implements a “searchable, up-to-date, electronic database” of such works. The amendment would require that this database be active (and that the Orphan Works legislation go into effect in regard to photographs) no later than December 1, 2011.
The database would be text-based and searchable by any field or combination of the following fields:
-name of the author or authors of the work
-name of the copyright owner and contact information for the owner
-title of the work
-the medium of the work (photograph, oil painting, poster, etc.)
-a description of the work
-a copy or representation of the work
-the date of registration of the work
-date of the work’s creation
-copyright registration number
The existence of this database at the U.S. Copyright Office would not necessarily relieve the person wishing to use an “orphaned work” from the requirement of looking at other sources to determine the ownership of the work.
Works in the database will only include those that are submitted to the Copyright Office electronically; however, the Office would also be instructed to allow prior copyright owners to re-deposit previously registered work.
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