Study Of Orphan Works

Orphan works are those works still in the copyright protection period, of which copyright owners are unknown or can’t be located. In fact, orphan works have been existed for a long time, only with the Google Library Project showing, the problems are increasingly coming forth. We don’t have the regulation about it, but the orphan works do exist actually. The principle of automatic protection of copyright, highly developed modern network technology, the indetermination of authors information and public’s insufficient awareness of copyright, are the main reasons for the causes of orphan works.The core issue of orphan works is the fair use of them. Since the identity or the address of the copyright owners is not clear, it’s difficult for users to communicate with owners by conversation or association. Many potential users give up their original plans because of the concern that it will result in lawsuit or compensation for infringing the copyright. In this situation, a great deal of works will be kept in history, which will be bad for reaching their value. Moreover, this awkward situation blocks the development of derivative works. Therefore, it’s beset with difficulties to make use of orphan works. Many countries such as the UK, USA, Canada, Japan and Korea have established laws and set policy aiming at usage of orphan works, while China doesn’t have the concept of "orphan works", and there is little involved with it. The pressing matter of the moment is to solve the usage problems of orphan works and to improve the weak legislation actuality of the copyright law. Since the Copyright Law was first published in1991, it has been amended in2001and2010. The third amendment began from2012, and involved a lot, including something about orphan works. Integrating the third amendment, this article makes further analysis and research with orphan works problems, by using the international experience and concerning the actual legislative situation of our country.In this paper, the adoption of the following parts of the contents of the exploitation of orphan works.Part Ⅰ:Introduction. This chapter gives the definition and scope of orphan works, analyzes the causes of it, discusses the problems from the Google Library Project, in order to lay the foundation for the following discussion. This chapter also leads to thoughts of China’s existing problems compared with "Baidu Library".Part Ⅱ:Analysis of solutions in western country. This chapter sets forth current patterns of solutions in other countries, including America, European Union, UK, Canada, Japan, and Korea. Then it makes comparisons between them, and analyzes the pros and cons, especially Orphan Works Act and Google Library Settlement, compulsory licensing pattern and statutory licensing pattern.Part Ⅲ:Theoretical basis of orphan works usage. By summarizing all kinds of systems described in the second chapter, this part makes research about principles of protection and usage, including balance of interest, reasonable diligent search, and liability rule.Part Ⅳ:Relative problems of orphan works in China. First of all, it introduces the scope, legislative situation and existing problems of orphan works in China; secondly, the chapter gives advise on the problems and points out the pattern we should choose by using the international experience; at last, it gives legislative advise on solutions of orphan works problems, combined with the third amendment of Copyright Law.