News
PACA Orphan Search matches lost image to its creator in less than 60 minutes
In response to concerns about Orphan Works legislation and what qualifies as a “reasonable search” effort to identify the copyright owner for a particular work, the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA) has launched surprisingly low-tech solution to assist buyers in finding the creator of an orphaned image. All the buyer has to do is email the image to and a PACA staff member forwards the image to its entire list of members and affiliated associations. In a recent test this solution was able to locate the rightful owner of an image in less than 60 minutes.
“We are thrilled that our first search worked so well,” said Cathy Aron, PACA Executive Director. “Now we need to get the word out to art buyers that a reliable image creator identification service exists!”
PACA staff circulated a request from a graphic designer within the travel industry. The inquiry was to identify the creator or any find copyright information for an internally archived image being used in a brochure. Within one hour the image creator was identified by two different types of agencies. Danita Delimont, a specialty agency, remembered having originally edited the image for a collection nearly seven years ago. A researcher from worldwide agency, Getty Images, located the rightful creator by using a combination of keyword search expertise and collection knowledge.
“Aligned with our mission to advocate copyrights, PACA is proud to be a leader in efforts to identify authors of orphaned images,” PACA President, Maria Kessler said. “While we are supporting a rudimentary effort in our initial Orphan Search, we look forward to additional cooperative efforts in our industry to forge ahead with better solutions.”
On its website PACA touts that this service “has the benefits of a completely automated solution with limited overhead” Along with the disclaimer “Please note that if no one locates a match, you should not assume that you have completed all that a ‘diligent search’ entails. There may be additional sources of information that should be checked before it is legal to use the work in question”.
Posted in: News, Orphan Works, PACA, Stock Photo Companies
Comments(2)
post a comment »MarcW, June 11, 2008 [#]
Great. They got lucky once. If the law passes and there are a thousand requests a day, their “automated, low-tech solution” will become unusuable in about an hour. Quicker if they get blacklisted as a probable SPAM source.
M
Kendal L, June 12, 2008 [#]
Ok - so they submit ONE image to agencies to try to find it, and they manage to do so.
What happens when they submit 50 - 100 - 500 - 1000+? Do you think anyone at Getty/Corbis/etc will put down their work to go search for image usages in the past? Marc is spot on that they’re likely to end up having their email blocked as spam. Shame on these people - another scam to make them money, and take it away from the photographers who are already scrambling trying to make a living. Shameful indeed.
KL