Though pundits predicted that this year’s orphan-works legislation was not going to see daylight until the next Congressional session, Utah Senator Orrin G. Hatch announced on Saturday that The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 has cleared the Senate. The House is expected to follow the Senate. Many creator organizations—including the American Society of Media Photographers and the Stock Artists Alliance—vehemently oppose the legislation and urge immediate action directed at the House of Representatives.
Posthumously named after the former Hatch legal counsel that initiated it, S. 2913 passed by a unanimous voice vote. “By limiting liability and providing reasonable compensation for copywriter owners, this bill strikes an appropriate balance between protecting against copyright infringement and making publicly available work that adds immeasurably to the preservation of our national and personal history,” said the Senator.
Marybeth Peters, the United States Register of Copyrights, earlier described the Senate version of the bill as sensible. Both Peters and Hatch stressed that S. 2913 includes conditions designed to protect copyright owners.
The bill is also widely supported by educational, historical and preservation bodies, including the Library of Congress, the Association of Public Television Stations, the Computer & Communication Industry Association, the Association of American Publishers and membership organizations that unite museums, libraries and universities.
In contrast, many creator groups have expressed opposition. This weekend, ASMP and SAA issued alerts urging their members to oppose the bill’s potential adoption by the House of Representatives. ASMP has previously expressed its—somewhat unenthusiastic—support for the House version of bill. SAA is among 70 organizations and over 100,000 visual artists, led by the Illustrators Partnership of America, who previously opposed both versions.
ASMP statement reads: “The members of the House of Representatives are being bombarded with messages from people in the library community urging them to adopt the language of the Senate orphan works bill. We need to counter that, and we need to do it now—tomorrow may, literally, be too late.” ASMP asks its membership to contact their Representatives and oppose any efforts to adopt S. 2913 or its language. The organization also offers its members draft letters and other resources on its Web site.
SAA expects the House to follow the Senate in passing the orphan-works legislation during this session. “We need to stop the House Judiciary Committee from folding their own bill (HR5889) and moving to adopt the Senate version,” said the organization in a Saturday email. The email directed members to an IPA-sponsored online resource that allows contacting the appropriate Representative by entering a zip code and adding a name to a letter that opposes H.R. 5889 and the adoption of the Senate version of the bill by the House Judiciary Committee.