From: "Hansen, Dave" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2014 20:16:29 +0000

On Monday Copyright Office published a notice of inquiry and request
for participation in a roundtable on orphan works and mass
digitization. You can read the full request here:
http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2014/79fr7706.pdf

"The U.S. Copyright Office will host public roundtable discussions and
seeks further comments on potential legislative solutions for orphan
works and mass digitization under U.S. copyright law. The meetings and
comments will provide an opportunity for interested parties to address
new legal developments as well as issues raised by comments provided
in response to the Office's previous Notice of Inquiry."

Among the topics of discussion are the need for legislation in light
of recent legal and technological developments (namely, fair use
caselaw and the development of more advanced electronic registries),
and the potential role of extended collective licensing (ECL) (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_collective_licensing ).

I know several people on this list have been involved with the effort
to develop best practices under fair use for the digital preservation
and access of library and archive collections that contain a
significant or unknown number of orphan works, so this might be of
particular interest to you.  This is the report that describes that
project: http://www.cmsimpact.org/fair-use/related-materials/documents/report-orphan-works-challenges-libraries-archives-and-other-mem

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David R. Hansen
Reference Librarian, UNC School of Law
Digital Library Fellow, UC Berkeley School of Law
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