june11b.indd


C&RL News June 2011  362

change to the status quo. Accord-
ingly, it is important to recognize 
that achieving a legislative solution 
to any of these issues will be dif-
ficult, if not impossible.

…The orphan works bill [S. 2913] 
passed by the Senate in the 110th 
Congress would have provided 
little practical relief to libraries with 
respect to large scale digitization 
projects…. Thus, S. 2913 as passed 
by the Senate should not represent 
the starting point for discussion of 
orphan works legislation, at least 
with respect to libraries. Instead, 
orphan works legislation for librar-
ies should begin with a clean slate.

In addition, LCA would support an effort 
to amend the Copyright Act to benefit librar-
ies only if it offered significant benefits over 
the status quo. Thus, a proposal must contain 
the following features:

• The noncommercial use by a nonprofit 
library or archives of a work when it pos-
sesses a copy of that work in its collection:

— would not be subject to statutory 
damages;

— would not be subject to actual damages 
if the use ceases when the library or archives 
receives an objection from the copyright 
owner of the work; and

— would be subject to injunctive relief 
only to the extent that the use continues after 
the library or archives receives an objection 
from the copyright holder of the work.

• The limitation on remedies would ap-
ply to the employees of libraries or archives, 
as well as to a consortium that includes the 
library or archives.

• Copyright owner objections would have 
no effect on a library’s rights under fair use. 

At this time, orphan works legislation 
has not been introduced in the 112th Con-
gress. 

Jenni Terry is press officer at ALA’s Washington Office, 
e-mail: jterry@alawash.org

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n eJenni Terry

Copyright reform and Orphan Works 
The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA), com-
prised of ALA, ACRL, and the Association of 
Research Libraries (ARL), issued a statement 
May 16, 2011, describing the key features 
copyright reform proposals should include in 
order to constitute significant improvement 
over current law for libraries and their users.

According to LCA, the Google Books set-
tlement rejection by Judge Denny Chin of the 
Southern District of New York on March 22 
ignited vigorous discussion of orphan works, 
mass digitization, and even modernization of 
Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Orphan 
works are works whose copyright holders 
cannot be identified or found, and are not 
made publicly available by libraries for fear 
that rights holders will come forward, initiate 
legal action, and demand statutory damages 
of up to $150,000 a work.

LCA, which represents the needs of library 
stakeholders in these debates, released its 
statement to provide helpful guideposts for 
these discussions.

Primarily, the statement underscores how 
libraries have always advocated for reason-
able copyright policy in the courts as well as 
in the U.S. Congress. Library activities already 
benefit from broad, flexible protection under 
the fair use doctrine and related provisions 
in current law. 

Excerpts from the statement are below. 
To view the entire document, go to www.
librarycopyrightalliance.org/bm~doc/lca 
_copyrightreformstatement_16may11.pdf.

… Congress and the affected stake-
holders have been unable to reach 
consensus on these [copyright law] 
issues for many reasons: the is-
sues are complex, there are many 
stakeholders; their interests diverge 
significantly; and some oppose any