Orphaned Works - letter of support
LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART
March 25, 2005
Julie L. Sigall
Associate Registrar for Policy and International Affairs
United States Copyright Office
Copyright GC/I&R
PO Box 70400
Southwest Station
Washington, D.C. 20024
Dear Ms. Sigall:
On behalf of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), I am writing to express our support for the proposal relating to orphan works (the “Orphan Works Proposal”) submitted by The J. Paul Getty Trust, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in their Comment Letter to you dated March 24, 2005 and the Appendix thereto.
LACMA is an encyclopedic visual arts museum with a collection of more than 100,000 artworks from around the world, spanning the history of art from antiquities to the most recent achievements in contemporary art, and encompassing all media. LACMA’s mission is to serve the public through the collection, conservation, exhibition and interpretation of significant works of art from a broad range of cultures and historical periods, and through the translation of these collections into meaningful educational, aesthetic, intellectual and cultural experiences for the widest array of audiences.
Within the limits of our resources, we strive to identify and locate potential holders of rights to works in our collection, and document our efforts to do so. Unfortunately, there are a great many works for which we cannot identify or locate rights holders. In our catalogues, when we include reproductions of works that may be orphan works, we place the following notice before the credits: “Most photographs are reproduced courtesy of the creators and lenders of the material depicted. For certain artwork and documentary photographs we have been unable to trace copyright holders. We would appreciate notification of additional credits for acknowledgment in future editions.”
The use of these images is vital to our mission. For this reason, and based on our experience, we believe the Orphan Works Proposal would provide much needed clarity in this area and would be fundamentally fair to both owners and users of rights in these works.
Sincerely,
Fred Goldstein
General Counsel