An "orphan work" is an image, illustration, text, etc., whose owner cannot be identified or found. The recent passage of UK's ERRB paves the way for real and massive rights abuse unless new and effective search schema are developed, tested, and implemented very quickly. Why?

"Why? Because social media, and everyone else for that matter routinely strip our names and contact details from our digital files. … So now commercial organisations will be allowed to make money from our “orphans”, but not us, the creators." David Bailey, iconic British photographer, in a letter to The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne MP, via theBPPA.

No workable system yet exists to identify who owns an image on the basis of image pixels alone. Yet there are tens of millions of "orphan works" residing on the internet already, having been created by most every social media host to date.

Under UK law, a "reasonable search" is all that would be required for a UK entity to use any image for commercial purposes, unless one registers, in a way that has yet to be created, all of the hundreds or thousands of images they've posted online.

Since the internet crosses most political boundaries, "any image" truly means ANY image.

How to Protect Yourself

We encourage everyone to participate in a free webinar, May 8, conducted by industry experts who explain why so many orphan works exist and what you can do to minimize the chances your creative work, whether professional or family snapshots, from becoming orphans subject to exploitation.

Even if you cannot attend, please be sure to register so you can be provided with a link to view it later.

Then let's all work together to get this sorted!