Can you answer any of these questions posed by other users? Think of it as a civic good deed. You can submit a short question too.

Answered by a visitor on Mar 20, 2009 2:56 AM - These links provide a more thorough analysis:

http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/my-take-on-orphan-works-act-of-2008.html

http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/orphan-works-fallout-history-may-lend.html

http://www.danheller.com/blog/posts/orphan-works-act-courts-and-law.html

Answered by a visitor on Oct 22, 2009 10:59 PM - To visitor on Jan 20, 2009. If someone takes my work, even if it is a digital file, I can show I have the original file with all the work, layers and such. I can show my thumbnails, my sketches, my value and color studies, all the work I put into my work to show how it has evolved into the final piece that someone stole. Just like handwriting, artists have a certain mark making and it is hard to replicate, even by other artists.

A national database seems fine to me, as a future professional artist, but not when each PIECE of my work would be charged to be put into this national database. It should be free, or at a VERY LOW cost, 10 cents or less. Illustrators make at least 20 images per piece of work, trying to work out potential problems for the final piece. Usually the illustrators save the sketches, and that is how they can show they have made the work.

To answer the original question, the bill was originally proposed as a way for educators, librarians, and historians to use the "orphaned work" for educational purposes but it has turned into this...something that's not good for much of anyone but "the big guy".