Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
Orphan may not be abandoned; it may mean "rights are unclear."
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The solution, then, is to overturn the Berne Convention and require affirmative and regular registration of copyright in order to maintain rights for the full term. The copyright belongs to the registrant.
The burden this would place on creators would have been onerous 20 years ago, but these days things are different, and such registration would be simple to handle over the net as part of any professional workflow. This is, effectively, what was proposed a couple of years ago, and was shot down amidst a cacophony of wailing.
Objections to registration in one form or another have played a key role in most of the opposition to any rationalisation of the orphan works mess. But when the creators' lobbies seem focussed purely on maintaining the status quo and refuse to offer any meaningful solution one can't help but begin to lose patience.