[Advocacy Advisors] Federal Register RfC on orphan works

[Luis Villa]

Welcome, Bob! I miss Manhattan, though admittedly not as much this time of
year :)

On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 5:30 AM, Bob Kosovsky <bobkosovsky at nypl.org> wrote:

> I recently joined this list specifically because of orphan works
> legislation.  I recently wrote an opinion piece on public domain for The
> Signpost (user:Kosboot) and I saw a similar plea on the WMF blog.  Though
> I'm only a lowly editor, I would hope WMF would take a stand on the orphan
> works issue.  Part of the technique of negotiation is that you ask for
> more, knowing that the result will be less than what you ask for.  So I
> think WMF should be really bold and ask for something like treating orphan
> works as if public domain if no one comes forward.  I think it would be
> wise to parse some of Maria Pallante's words (she's the US Register of
> Copyright) to see what is her thinking on the matter (she seems to be more
> liberal than most had expected).
>
> In any case, I'd be happy to work on such a project.
>

Cool! I'd suggest we could start it the same way we did the (ongoing) EU
consultation - put the questions into the wiki and start drafting answers.
(I would ask that this time we actually try to draft answers, not just
comments - it was a lot of work to try to craft things into answers :)

And generally, I agree that we should make strong requests, but I'm
definitely worried about exactly the situation Mathias raised. In the EU,
the "mix a lot of requests into a pot without a practical result" approach
led to a "solution" that solved nothing and now makes it much harder to
reach an actual solution :/

Luis (who ran into this problem personally while trying to find an
illustration for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minerva_Hamilton_Hoyt -
great picture of her in a 1931 book with unfindable publisher)


>
> Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts,
> Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
> blog:  http://www.nypl.org/blog/author/44   Twitter: @kos2
>  Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-TALK ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
> - My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions -
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 4:06 AM, Mathias Schindler <
> mathias.schindler at wikimedia.de> wrote:
>
>> 2014-02-13 1:51 GMT+01:00 Luis Villa <lvilla at wikimedia.org>:
>> > On Wed, Feb 12, 2014 at 2:21 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkaldari at wikimedia.org>
>> > wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hey guys,
>> >> The U.S. Federal Register is doing an RfC and Public Roundtable on the
>> >> issue of orphan works. I would really like for us to take this as an
>> >> opportunity to push for U.S. adoption of the "rule of the shorter
>> term", as
>> >> this would solve our URAA problems on Commons and free millions of
>> orphan
>> >> foreign works in the U.S.
>> >
>> >
>> > I had been aware of this, but hadn't raised it here because most of the
>> > orphan works proposals I'm aware of are a lot like fair use - nice(ish)
>> for
>> > lots of users, but not giving us the certainty we like to have when
>> > creating/distributing materials. But a rule of shorter term proposal
>> would
>> > definitely give address one part of the orphan works problem in a way
>> that
>> > would give us the certainty we like/need.
>>
>> Greetings from Europe, where we can say "been there, done that" with
>> respect to Orphan Works legislation
>> (
>> http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2012:299:0005:0012:EN:PDF
>> ).
>>
>> In short, the EU orphan works directive does not benefit Wikipedia for
>> many reasons. First, we are not among the priviledged institutions
>> (Article 1) and the permitted uses of orphan works are far too narrow
>> to help open content projects (Article 6). On top of that, the
>> dilligent search procedure as required by Article 3 is incompatible
>> with the idea of mass digitisation and the possibility to end the
>> orphan work status (Article 5) is fundamentally against the idea of a
>> lasting commons of works that can be built upon.
>>
>> The consultation work by the US Federal Register should have a close
>> look at the way Europe did it.
>>
>> I strongly recommend participation in this RfC by US based open
>> content projects with fundamentally different needs than, for example,
>> google or a public library.
>>
>> Mathias
>>
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-- 
Luis Villa
Deputy General Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext. 6810

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