(Submitted by the USC Intellectual Property Clinic)
On March 15, Professor Jennifer Urban's Intellectual Property Clinic students Jason Kakoyiannis and Kaveh Shakeri filed testimony with the U.S. House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property on behalf of nine organizations for independent and documentary film and other media artists. The testimony is a follow-up to last year's comments to the Copyright Office on the problem of "orphan works" — copyrighted works for which the owner cannot be found.
When there is no locatable owner — a common situation now that copyright terms are so long, and there are no requirements to register or mark the work — an artist cannot ask permission to use the work in a new film or other artwork. Smaller independent artists often cannot afford to take the risk of using the work without express permission, so their valuable cultural contributions (documentary films, historical movies and the like) suffer, and the orphaned work itself languishes in obscurity.
Kakoyiannis and Shakeri are arguing for a clear limitation on liability for their clients who want to use orphan works, coupled with safeguards to make certain that "orphan owners" can still exploit their works later if they come forward. Their clients are part of a broad range of stakeholders — libraries, museums, publishers, the larger recording and movie industries, and public interest organizations, among others — documenting and asking for a solution to the unfortunate orphan works situation.
Shakeri and Kakoyiannis's clients are: the Association of Independent and Video and Filmmakers; Film Arts Foundation; IFP (Independent Feature Project); the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture; and National Video Resources. Other nonprofits that worked with the IP Clinic and signed on to the testimony are: Doculink, the International Documentary Association, FIND (Film Independent); and Public Knowledge.
Previous Article
