I work in an archives and we are digitising a collection of 17th century papers, which are technically still in copyright until 2039 and are therefore. There are 30,000 documents, a large proportion of which have authors that are unknown and the majority of the rest have copyright owners that are definitely untracable (and so are ‘orphan works’). A single letter of this age may technically have thousands of copyright owners and it would be impossible to trace the descendants of each author to establish who is the heir of the person that wrote it.

Although we are only taking a slight risk in publishing these papers (and thereby making the historical information available to researchers all over the world), I would be much happier if it were risk free. I think there needs to be a distinction drawn between Google putting illegal copies of books on-line and libraries, archives and museums who wish to make their historical collections available without taking unecessary risks.

“The Web radio experience is instructive. The institution that distributes performance fees to artists is SoundExchange, an organization that spun off from the Recording Industry Association of America in 2003. In 2007, the Houston Press noted that the group was apparently unable to locate about 25 percent of the performers on whose behalf it was allegedly acting. After perusing the list of lost musicians, the Press’s John Nova Lomax reported that ‘in less than five minutes of Googling, I found the official Web sites and/or MySpace pages of Fito Olivares, Goudie, Mark May, the Hollisters and Los Skarnales. What’s more, highly visible people like Cam’ron (fresh off a highly-publicized appearance on 60 Minutes), Fat Joe and Danzig are on the ‘lost’ list too.’”

Source: http://www.reason.com/news/show/134011.html

Don’t be fools. This debate isn’t about “orphan works.” It’s about exploiting the works of people who’re very much alive and very capable of being found. As the RIAA/SoundExchange has already gone, so Google’s book registry will go. It’s a scam.

I have figures to back that up from no less a source than Michael Boni, the lawyer allegedly representing the “author sub-class” in the Google settlement. According to an email he sent that was passed on to me, less than 4 percent of the authors whose books Google initially scanned have come forward. If this settlement is approved by a court, look for Google to put its scanners into overdrive, its publicity machine into hibernation, and the number of found “orphan works” authors to shrink to less than 1 percent. For Google, the money lies in keeping orphaned works orphaned.

I might add that I know authors are findable. I managed to find the author of a book published in the UK by an anonymous author who lived in Nazi Germany despite the fact that today the book’s original publisher didn’t have a clue as to who the author was. (Making that book no only an orphan work, but one by a nameless orphan.) I did it by rolling up my sleeves and working. Those who want to publish orphan works can do the same.

But there many items, e.g. photographs, that do not have any author identification on them. But are almost certainly “in copyright” and can’t be freely copied.

Some kind of general licence for works with no identifiable author is really needed.