From what I understand, no PG volunteer (not counting John Mark Ockerbloom) has posted a comment to the US Copyright Office's RFC about "orphan works".
So now US copyright policy will be guided by comments such as Kristie Hubler's: "If people have access to my work without paying for it, and using it just to make a buck, it would be as if I were being raped, or having a child I bore ripped out of my arms, never to be seen again." It may very well be possible that PG volunteers have no opinion about orphan works. In that case, consider this e-mail message not sent. If you are concerned about orphan works, now is your last chance to be heard. You can send reply comments to the US Copyright Office until May 5, 2005. The rules are explained here: <http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/> Initially some 700 comments were submitted. It's hard to read through all of them, so I suggest Googling for abstracts, looking for the usual suspects et cetera. There's an unused Wiki running at <http://www.gutenberg.org/cgi-bin/wiki-newsletter.cgi>. I suggest you use that for sharing notes. Do not wait for an official PG position statement. Official statements are hard to draft, because they require consensus. Also, official statements tend to sound impersonal, exactly because they represent a consensus position. There is nothing wrong with sounding like you actually care (although I would leave the Hubler-style hysterics at home). -- branko collin collin@xs4all.nl