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http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/bparchive?year=2006&#38;post=2006-02-01,7After conducting hearings on ths issue of "orphan works" (copyrightedworks that are lost to further use because their copyright holderscan no longer be traced), the Copyright Office has just issueda report on the hearings, and their recommendations.   It's athttp://www.copyright.gov/orphanI've only had time to read the executive summary and skim throughsome of the rest, but the gist seems to be that they recommend changingUS copyright law to allow use of those works by the public under certaincircumstances.  Quoting from the report (via my colleague Beth Camden):"The recommendation has two main components:* the threshold requirements of a reasonably diligent search for thecopyright owner and attribution to the author and copyright owner* the limitation of remedies that would be available if the user provesthat he conducted a reasonably diligent search."Basically, if a user makes a reasonably diligent search for a copyrightholder, and cannot locate one, they could reuse the work, and sanctionswould be minimized if a copyright holder later turns up who wasn'tfindable earlier. [...]