Sent on behalf of a colleague and likely of interest to DLF Members:
***
Dear colleagues,
I am conducting research with Professor Melissa Terras of University College London on the current provision of Orphan Works registration schemes and how they have been implemented. An 'Orphan Work' is one whose copyright holder cannot be located, but which is still in copyright ( based on its publication/creation date). Recent legislation (Directive 2012/28/EU) passed in 2012 and enacted in late 2014 has led to the development of Orphan Works Registries in the UK and the EU.
We would appreciate if you could answer some survey questions to help us in our research. This survey covers the UK registry, but may still be of value to respondents living and working in the EU or elsewhere, as the UK registry requires any Orphan Work which may have an as-yet-unidenfitied UK copyright holder to be registered and licensed in order to be legally viewed, displayed, replicated or incorporated digitally on websites accessible to the public in the United Kingdom. In other words, if you have an orphan work in your institution or incorporated into one of your digital projects, and you are not sure if it is either a) still in copyright or b) may have a UK copyright holder, you may be liable to register this work with the UK licensing scheme (and will need to provide evidence that you performed a diligent search for any possible known copyright holders).The survey is available at the following web address: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/OrphanWorksSurvey and, depending on your answers and level of familiarity with the UK scheme, may take about 20 minutes to complete. We would appreciate your insights into the current handling of Orphan Work registration schemes, even if you/your institution have chosen not to use them. The survey will be active until the end of January.
In January, we will be conducting follow-up phone/skype/in-person interviews with a small selection of people who have filled out the survey. If you are interested in being one of the people we contact for a follow-up interview, please indicate this at the end of the survey.
Thank you so much in advance for filling out this survey. If you would be so kind as to spread this survey widely throughout your social media networks and list servs, we would appreciate it!
Merisa Martinez
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow |
DiXiT ITN
****
Daniel Powell | Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow (DiXiT ITN)
King’s College London | Department of Digital Humanities
University of Victoria | Electronic Textual Cultures Lab | Department of English
