Comment by gherkin0
10 years ago
> With orphan works specifically, the concern that I've heard expressed by some photographers is that companies will spend exactly 10 seconds trying to track down the copyright holder before deciding it's orphaned and using the work as they see fit.
I think a prerequisite to any kind of default licensing would need to be a documented good-faith effort to find the actual rightsholder. Futhermore, if they can't find them, I think they should have to put the default licensing fees into escrow, so it's not they could avoid paying anything.
In most cases, there is no "default licensing fee." Mechanicals in music are really the exception rather than the rule. (And this is probably less of an issue with music than elsewhere in any case because of the royalty clearing organizations.)