Slashdot Mirror
Opening the Public Doman to Orphan Books
InklingBooks writes "In the late 1990s, when Hollywood paid an all-too-willing Congress to extend copyright terms to 90 years, an existing problem grew much worse. Many out-of-print books, including some SciFi classics, became orphans. Though still "protected" by copyright, there was no one around who could give legal permission to publish them. Their author were dead, and it was expensive and often impossible to find out who (if anyone) now owned their literary estates. Fortunately, the Copyright Office is now taking comments on how the law might be changed. See Orphan Works."
If something can be done about this problem it would be an incredible step forward in copyright law.
Hopefully they will also consider "abandonware" not just books.
I was lucky enough to be able to get in touch with the author of my favorite computer book to get permission republish the work under a Creative Commons license: Thinking Forth. Computer books are notorious for going out of print but they have high value to vintage computer users, and some like TF are valuable classics in and of themselves.
Not everyone is so fortunate though. Usually the copyright holder is impossible to get hold of or they have no interest in even discussing it. Or else you are dealing with a legal department that just wants to keep any possible liabilities to a minimum. No benefit to them, so not worth it to deal with you.
How about for any work under copyright, they have to PUBLISH the owner of the copyright to the library of congress every 10 years, or the copyright is to be considered expired. In effect, you have to tell people who owns the copyright in order to maintain the copyright.