Addressing ‘Orphan Works’ Problem under the Ethiopian Copyright Regime: Lesson from Other Jurisdictions

Abstract

Copyright law accords protection to creative works regardless of their ownership status. To grant protection, copyrights are not required to be registered and there is no comprehensive list of who owns particular right. This lack of ownership data will leads to the problem of “orphan works”, the situation in which locating the owner of certain copyrighted works is difficult even after diligent search is conducted by users. Obtaining the consent of copyright holder is necessary in order to use both works whose authors are known and unknown. The issue with orphan works is that users may choose not to use them by incorporating them into newly created works or digitizing and distributing them online. The possibility of a copyright owner who may bring legal action for copyright infringement in the future is a deterrent to the use of orphan works. Even if the probability of such an occurrence is insignificant, using orphan works for any purpose can result in copyright law violation. It is a common challenge for every copyright law. This study addresses the issue of orphan works under the Ethiopian copyright regime. The research employs doctrinal legal methodologies, analyzing primary and secondary data through legal reasoning tools to explore the regulation and pricing of orphan works in various jurisdictions in order to investigate a variety of policy options and to draw a lesson for Ethiopia. The study demonstrates that as this has a problem largely emerged with the development of technology, Ethiopia has not taken orphan works as a problem serious enough to take action to address. The research indicates that there is no provision of Ethiopian law that directly deal with orphan works. Interpreting existing laws may not fully address all the challenges associated with orphan works, rather it may help to clarify how orphan works can be used within the existing law. Therefore, the study suggests that clear legal frameworks should be established to improve access to these works. Finally, it recommends adopting compulsory licensing for commercial reuse and exception-based approaches for noncommercial reuse of orphan works.