Digital library project and orphan works
Hathi Trust have embarked on the grand task of digitising all printed work for the sake of preservation. This is a massive task and it seems Hathi Trust have a research stumbling block when it comes to ‘finding’ authors of work still in copyright.
Works belonging to authors who are considered untraceable are placed in a public catelog for 90 days. If the authors have not claimed rights for their work within this timeframe, the content will be deemed ‘orphaned‘.
The Authors Guild have embarked on a search to find some of these orphaned works and have quickly discovered one famous rights owner already. This places doubt on the process used by Hathi Trust in the ‘extensive review process’ they use to determine what titles go on the orphan list in the first place. Authors Guild have since found a further two rights owners with similar ease to the first search.