The Samuelson Clinic submitted comments on behalf of the Internet Archive in response to the Copyright Office’s Notice of Inquiry (PDF) relating to Orphan Works.
In its comments, the Internet Archive urged the Copyright Office to consider the impact that Orphan Works—works whose owners are difficult or impossible to locate—have on the digital library and archiving community. It addressed the problems that Orphan Works present to digital libraries, discussed solutions and practices the Internet Archive has developed in analogous situations, and proposed that digital libraries should have the right to preserve digital works and to provide access to such works pursuant to a request and removal system that would allow rights holders to withhold their works from being archived and remove works already archived.
The Clinic also submitted reply comments to the Copyright Office on behalf of the Internet Archive. The reply comments elaborated on The Archive’s experience with digital preservation of, and access, to various works as well as its proposed partial solution to the Orphan Works process. The reply comments also discussed some of the many comments that related similar experiences with, and proposals for, digital preservation and access. The Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University Law School and the DigiBarn Computer Museum have endorsed the Internet Archive’s proposal for a safe harbor for archives and libraries that engage in digital preservation and access subject to appropriate procedures designed to protect copyright holders’ rights.