From: "Hansen, Dave" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:41:16 +0000

I thought some of you might be interested in some recent articles on
the topic of legal solutions to orphan works and mass digitization.
As some of you who attended might recall from the April 2012 UC
Berkeley symposium on orphan works and mass digitization, Jennifer
Urban and others symposium presenters are researching and writing some
serious academic papers on this subject. We wanted to let you know
that drafts of many of those papers are now available online. Links to
each are located at the top of this page:

http://www.law.berkeley.edu/12819.htm .

These papers will be formally published in the November edition of the
Berkeley Technology Law Journal.

Of those, I want to specifically point out Jennifer’s paper, “How Fair
Use Can Help Solve the Orphan Works Problem,” which was posted online
just a few days ago. You can find online here:

http://ssrn.com/abstract=2089526 . This is a portion of the abstract:

This Article argues that legislation is not necessary to enable some
uses of orphan works by nonprofit libraries and archives. Instead, the
fair use doctrine in United States copyright law provides a partial
solution. The Article addresses three basic questions: first, does
fair use provide a viable basis on which libraries might digitize
orphans? Second, does fair use provide a viable basis on which to make
these orphans available to patrons or the public? Third, more
generally, can or should fair use do any additional work in
infringement analysis where the copyrighted work in question is an
orphan? The answer to each of these questions is yes.

-----

David R. Hansen
Digital Library Fellow
Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic
UC Berkeley School of Law
[log in to unmask]