Searching for the Possible in the Orphan Works Debate

[Commentary] In a response to a recent New York Times op-ed by Larry Lessig, Sohn defends the "diligent effort" framework for searches which she says has been endorsed by all the major library and museum groups, as well as by smaller user groups like independent and documentary filmmakers. She also writes the nothing in the pending orphan works legislation is unfair to copyright holders. Lessig proposes as an alternative something that Public Knowledge wholeheartedly supports in concept: a 14-year copyright term, followed by a requirement that the copyright holder register the work and pay $1 to receive the full protection of copyright law. We like this idea because it could help to solve the damage to creativity and the public domain associated with longer copyright terms. In practice however, this proposal has two major problems. First, it actually doesn't solve the orphan works problem. Under Larry’s plan, works created between 1978 and today would be exempted at first. That’s a lot of orphans, and specifically a lot of web orphans. Even if that exemption were to expire, the 14-year initial copyright window would still give rise to orphan works, since many works cease being exploited after only a couple of years. The second problem is more fundamental - and that is that right now, the proposal is completely politically infeasible.
http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1584