Webcast: Orphan Works Debate at Washington College of Law

On February 24, the Washington College of Law presented a timely Orphan Works Debate. A webcast of the program is now available. It is 2 hours long, with one hour devoted to each panel. You will need Windows Media Player to view it. Follow these links:

http://www.wcl.american.edu/ipclinic/orphan_works.cfm
On this page look under the horizontal rule line for the heading that says:
EVENT WEBCAST (Click Here)
Password: "ipclinic"
Click on the link, and enter the password.

For those who don’t yet know, Congress is at work on a major change to U.S. Copyright Law. Orphan Works legislation is now being fast-tracked in both the House and Senate. It would seriously impact the careers of illustrators and photographers by limiting or removing penalties for infringement where works have been published without identifying information. The proposed legislation would affect both foreign and domestic work and it would be retroactive. Joining in the discussion were representatives of groups who both favor and oppose these changes.

Prue Adler (Association of Research Libraries),
Jonathan Band (counsel to the Library Copyright Alliance),
Kathleen Franz (American University History Dept.),
Stephen Gottlieb (Recording Industry Association of America),
Brad Holland (Illustrators' Partnership of America),
Robert Kasunic (U.S. Copyright Office),
Eugene Mopsik (American Society of Media Photographers),
Jay Rosenthal (counsel to the Recording Artists Coalition),
Jason Schultz (Electronic Frontier Foundation),
Eric Schwartz (Smith & Metalitz),
Matt Skelton (U.S. Copyright Office),
Jule Sigall (U.S. Copyright Office),
Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown Law Center),
Jennifer Urban (USC Law School, who filed comments for documentary filmmakers).

For illustrators who would like to go directly to an analysis of this legislation’s effect on our profession, Brad Holland's presentation begins at 68:10 minutes.

Sincerely,
The Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership of America