Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike L
I agree that they rights owners will only get the fee paid for the actual use, but that wasn't what I was asking. I was asking who pays the fee - the person using the work, or (in effect) the taxpayer?
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The license fee is the fee paid by the person wanting the license i.e. it's the person using the work.
So to summarize(*):
- you can now apply for a non-exclusive, 7-year (renewable), UK-only, right to use an orphaned work
- to do so you make an application and pay a fee (fee depends on how many works you want to use and what kinds they are)
- Intellectual Property Office aims to process your application in 10 working days
- If during that time a rights holder comes forward application is rejected and normal copyright rules apply
- if rights holder comes forward after that time then they receive all the fees associated with that work
- once this has happened, no new licenses will be issued but existing ones continue until the end of their term
So it functions as a kind of escrow if someone does come forward. However they're getting a fee based on some generic scale not what they perhaps could have negotiated themselves but that's a reasonable downside and a fair disincentive to not let your works fall into orphan status in the first place.
(*my understanding, which may be wrong, source
here, which trainboy first posted)
[ETA] My point about the taxpayer is that I would think you only need a small proportion of the works to stay orphaned for the for fees to cover the administration costs.