Activity on orphan works is
not limited to the United States. A variety of countries
have orphan work like provisions in effect today and other
countries are considering orphan works provisions similar
to the legislation in the United States.
Canada
Canada has an existing orphan works process
already up and running. It
is significantly different from recent discussions in
the U.S. and the UK since it requires a formal
application in advance of usage to the Copyright Board
of Canada. The application is to obtain a limited
license for uses that are pre-identified by the user.
The Copyright Board of Canada determines an advance
royalty to be paid by the user prior to use. The royalty
is held in escrow by the Board. As of February 2008,
there were 217 approved uses of orphan works.
United
Kingdom
The Gowers Review of Intellectual
Property included a section on the orphan works
issue. A report on orphan works (pdf) was requested from the British
Screen Advisory Council.
European
Union
The European Union High Level Expert Group on
Digital Libraries presented an advisory report on copyright
issues to the
European Commission.