YOUR last chance to save all human history from destruction

The US Copyright Office sought comments on "orphan works" that are still in copyright but have no identifiable rights-holders, and the problems this presents to culture, scholarship and free speech.

Reply comments are due on Monday, May 9. This may be your last chance to help the government craft a solution that doesn't doom 99 percent of human creation to the scrapheap of history in order to sell a couple more copies of the precious few works that are still commerically viable decades after their creation.

Here's an example of the kind of comment the Copyright Office received -- it's heartbreaking (12K PDF Link):

Several years ago I was doing antarctic research, and was looking to compile a history of the McMurdue station and it's researchers. There are MANY sources for information, ranging from newspaper articles to journals to personal memoirs. Most of the larger sources, e.g. newspapers, are easily contacted for permissions etc. I found that many of the photographs etc. I was most interested in using were poorly attributed, and even if attributed, the was often considerable confusion regarding whom should be be contacted. For example, if a researcher takes a number of photos of his living quarters, while working for a university, and funded my multiple partners, who owns the copyright to the photo? Can I use it, 50 years later, to illustrate poorly documented historical details, or will the third-cousin of the current owner of one of the groups funding the original expidition sue me?

The lawyers I contacted assured me that there was no legally-safe way to handle such questions, and strongly advised I abandon all hope of documenting a facinating piece of history, due to our idiotic "intellectual property" laws. Not having a desire to be sued, I took their advice and abandoned the project.

Here's all the comments the Copyright Office received.

Here's the Orphan Works project, where you can submit reply comments to the Copyright Office.

Here's Kat Hanna's email address: she's volunteered her services to help you get your comments in and in a form that will do the most good. Kat sez, "I have volunteered to help people publicize the orphan works issue by sending them good stories we've culled from the 700+ comments. Information on submitting reply comments is on www.orphanworks.org; I don't really have the expertise to help people draft reply comments. Thanks!" (Thanks, Kat!)