New Copyright Legislation Update, Op-Ed

Americans for the Arts is doing an outstanding job tracking new Congressional legislation concerning copyright on so-called "orphan works" - copyrighted works in which a copyright holder is difficult to locate or identify and may still benefit from copyright protection. Many works of music, literature and film fall into this category.

Read the attached advocacy alert with timely information on the legislation's status, as well as policy concerns identified in the legislation.

On May 20th, The New York Times ran an Op-Ed by Lawrence Lessig acknowledging the problem of orphan works. He believes the proposed legislation is not a fair solution for many copyright holders.

For more high-quality information on this topic, please see the Rescue Orphan Works website by the advocacy organization Public Knowledge, as well as the website of Americans for the Arts.