British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
British Academy Criticises Licensing Scheme Proposal for Orphan Works
The British Academy is opposing a proposal from the House of Commons Innovation, Universities and Skills Committee that the Copyright Tribunal should become responsible for granting licences for the use of 'orphan works' i.e. works either by authors whose date of death is unknown, and/or of which the right-holders cannot be traced.
The Academy is strongly opposed to any proposal that will require academic researchers to pay to use orphan works when the right-holder has not been identified. Copyright is a vital issue for academic researchers in the humanities and social sciences, because it impacts on the way in which they gain access to, and use research material. As the experience of Fellows and other researchers shows, the overwhelming majority of these right-holders will never come forward, and it is unlikely that the payment of licence fees would be of benefit to the right-holder of the orphan work.
Estimates suggest that the number of orphan works is significant, for example, the British Library believes that 40 per cent of all print works are orphan works.
Professor John Kay, Chairman of the Academy’s Copyright Group, said: “There is a problem with orphan works but this is not the solution.” The British Academy believes that if the author or publisher of an orphan work cannot be identified by reasonable search, others should be allowed to produce derivative works from that material.
The Academy welcomes the recommendation that the Copyright Tribunal should issue guidelines on orphan works. However, it does not believe that the UK should follow the Canadian practice of granting licences for the use of orphan works.
The Academy's full response to the inquiry on the work and operation of the Copyright Tribunal is available from: www.britac.ac.uk/reports/copyright/tribunal/
NOTES TO EDITORS
Published:
24 January 2008
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