A big snippet from email Larry Lessig, star of The West Wing, is sending around, lightly edited:

Thanks to some prodding by a couple of great US Senators, the copyright office is currently considering whether to recommend changes to copyright law that will make it easier and cheaper for you to use “orphaned works” — works that remain under copyright but whose “owner” can’t be found…

To convince them, we need your help. If you have a relevant story, or a perspective that might help the Copyright Office evaluate this issue, I would be grateful if you took just a few minutes to write an email telling them your story. The most valuable submissions will make clear the practical burden the existing system creates. (One of my favorite stories is about a copy-shop’s refusal to enlarge a 60 year old photo from an elementary school year book for a eulogy because the copyright owner couldn’t be found.) Describe instances where you wanted to use a work, but couldn’t find the owner to ask permission. Explain how that impacted your ability to create…

The Copyright Office is already overworked and understaffed, so I’m not asking that you stuff their inbox with demands for action, or anything like that. [Emphasis added] They are not Congress. They are not even the FCC. Their role here is as fact-finder, so “just the facts, ma’am.” (Oops, do I need permission to use that?)

Everything you need to do this is online at http://eldred.cc. ..

Larry also points at LuminousVoid’s reporting on the American Library Association’s oral argument against the FCC’s right to put in blace the Broadcast Flag regulation that will require manufacturers of digital equipment to ensure that their recorders can’t be used to make copies of copyrighted works. The article also points to Declan McCullagh’s coverage. [Technorati tags: fcc BroadcastFlag lessig ]

Categories: Uncategorized dw