Orphaned Works and the Requirement To Preserve Metadata

An anonymous reader writes "Orphaned works legislation promises to open older forgotten works to new uses and audiences. Groups like ASMP think it's inevitable. But it comes with the risk of defanging protection for current work when the creator cannot be located. Photographer Mark Meyer wonders if orphaned works legislation also needs language to compel organizations like Facebook to stop their practice of stripping metadata from user content in order to keep new work from becoming orphans to begin with. Should we have laws to make stripping metadata illegal?" The author notes that excessive copyright terms may be to blame; if that's the case why lobby for Orphaned Works legislation? On a related note, Rick Falkvinge asks if we should revisit the purpose of the copyright monopoly.

Comments

When is a work "orphaned"?

[wvmarle]

This alone is an interesting question. How much work does one have to put in locating a work's copyright holder? How much effort do we have to put into remembering that information?

The summary already presents an interesting case: Facebook stripping metadata, such as the author name, from copies of works they receive. A short while later no-one can remember who it was from; so it is orphaned now? This would open an avenue of legal infringement. Especially with smaller works like photos it may be hard to find the original maker if the metadata is gone. Or should we consider such orphans as "copyright protected" and prohibit any further distribution unless the distributor can show they have the rights?

It's not exactly easy. Especially in this digital age where information can be wiped or added without a trace. Metadata can be stripped, it can also be added or changed, and then it becomes hard to prove which version is the original.

Re:When is a work "orphaned"?

[HungryHobo]

Sometimes it's more important what it's a photo of. Not everthing can be replicated.

If you don't know what photographer took an old photo of one of your dead parents should you have to make yourself a criminal in order to make copies before it can degrade?

under the current system you do.
You may not get caught but that's beside the issue. as it stands you could be sued if the photographers grandchildren ever found out that you had made copies for your family members.

but lets take your approach: if it's that important we can always just dig up the corpse and pay a photographer to make a similar one, or make it ourselves. Easy.

oh. wait. in the real world your "sollution" is os obviously stupid that I can't believe you didn't realise that it's impractical. you know it's stupid but you parrot it anyway.

Indeed any photo of anything which can't be reproduced hits the same problem. a dead person. a long gone building. a historic event.

If you can't find the guys who snapped the photo or figure out who his estate reverted to then you cannot legally make a copy. You can only leave the origional to rot and degrade taking the fine details of whatever it records with it.

you could ignore the law and make yourself a criminal which is what people already do but any law which makes everyone a criminal is a broken law.

that's why. it's a broken system.
   

Re:Copyrights, at just the right amount

[blahplusplus]

"Copyrights is actually a good thing. But like many other thing, too much a good thing can become bad, very very bad."

You're ignorant of the law. People said the same when copyright was first implemented long time ago, the "just the right amount people" have no credibility. See here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

Copyright has been extended EVERY single time, there was not a time where copyright was NOT extended at request of corporations/greedy rich stars.

For those interested in the law and history of law relating to copyright see here:

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/default.htm

And this speech for good measure for all the "copyright moderates". The same thing was said long before you all were born.

http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html

My personal view is there is not going to be a legal solution forthcoming because most human beings are not concerned/too ignorant/stupid/illiterate.

Re:good luck with enforcing that

[Half-pint HAL]

The law doesn't have to say "it's illegal to change metadata", just that it's illegal to remove copyright attributions that would result in an erroneous orphan work. Stripping metadata is like removing the name-tag from someone's jacket or computer so that it becomes lost property. You hand it in, and when the owner doesn't claim it within 3 months, it becomes your property. But if you hadn't removed the tag, it would have been easy to reunite it with its owner. Removing identifying marks is dishonest, and potentially fraudulent.

The BBC is one of the groups supporting "orphan works" legislation in the UK, but the BBC routinely strips meta-data from readers' contributions to the site. Contributors could claim that the BBC misled them, claiming they would retain ownership of their works, but then failed to take insufficient measures to protect the rights that they had promised their readers. That sounds like a lawsuit in the making....