Okay, first I was really FUCKED up in the first place after reading Mark Simons' article from AWN, which really shows the 'Orphaned Works Legislation' to be such a FUCKED up bill and I couldn't help getting paranoid with Mark's fiery words in every lines he said about the bill and listening to the interview he had with Brad Holland from IPA regarding with the bill. After some clearing ups and researches, I finally got a clear insight at the bill which was posted by Mrs Marybeth Peters, a register of copyrights in the US:[link]

1. Why the bill is proposed?
First, let's look into the Orphaned Works problem, some people who wanted to get old photographs retouched or repaired but were denied service by the photo shops because:
A) Those pictures were taken by the photographer at the wedding then and should be the one (not the customers) who has copyright for the photograph and they need approvals from that guy.
B) The customers don't even know who-the-FUCK photographer at his/her parents' wedding and how the FUCK are they going to trace it? Do photo shops expect their customers to go on a wildgoose chase for some guy who shot their folks wedding 30 years ago?

Other examples are big organisations like museums and documentary filmmakers who want to use archival collections of old photos and celluloid footages and to do that they need approvals from the owners but should if the owners were buried 6 feet deep long long time ago, who the FUCK they're gonna turn to get permissions? At the end, the whole show&tell project FUCKED up all because the owner is DEAD and they can't risked getting HELL lawsuits from the other side.

2. The Proposed Solution
In Marybeth's statements recommended a framework whereby a legitimate orphan works owner who resurfaces may bring an action for “REASONABLE COMPENSATION” against a qualifying user. A user does not qualify for the benefits of orphan works legislation UNLESS he/she first conducts a good faith, reasonably diligent (but unsuccessful) search for the copyright owner.

It allows a copyright owner to present evidence related to the market value of his/hers work and, at the same time, allows the copyright user to more precisely gauge his/hers exposure to liability. Statutory damages are not apply to Orphaned Works but statutory damages are STAYING. If an owner were to emerge, his/hers legal ownership of the copyright in his/hers work is unchanged. Full remedies, including full statutory damages, would be used against both original and new users who are trying to use it for something else.

The copyrights guys also proposed one exception to the basic rule of reasonable compensation, which is a safe-harbor for certain limited uses performed without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage. The exception would apply only where the user STOP using it after receiving NOTICES for infringement and is believed to be critical for orphan works solution. For example, a local museum wants to use multiple Orphan Photos available on its website or in pamphlets, it is possible that reasonable compensation would still rarely conflict with the legitimate interests of the copyright owner.

3. Public Responses:
Generally digital photographers are against this as they find that their works/pictures are sometimes thought to be ORPHANED when they're NOT. That's because their works are NOT WATERMARKED and they uploaded it directly from digicams to PC to sites like Fotopages, Photobuckets, Flickr etc. Unlike both traditional and CG paintings, pictures taken from digicams seldom provide any hard evidences that they OWN the pictures. Therefore, such situations are also the roots of PRECEIVED ORPHANED WORKS. So what are they gonna do? Go back to the old Kodak Film style? Man, even your UGLY ID photo and digital homemade porn videos are considered 'Orphaned' too.

The bill included revisions to the Copyright Office's original proposal and incorporated a number of changes that were designed to protect photographers and other visual artists in particular. These changes included a requirement that users document their searches, a definition of "reasonable compensation" (taken from the Office's Report), and the availability of attorney's fees under circumstances where a user fails to negotiate in good faith with an owner who has previously registered his work.

In conclusion, the bill is hoped to makes things more easier for museums, documentary filmmakers and publishers when it comes to using Orphaned Works where owners are DEAD and Marybeth stressed that the bill does NOT create an EXCEPTION; nor does it rescind an owner's COPYRIGHTS RIGHTS.

Above are are just summarised version and here is my opinions about the bill. It will be beneficial for any organisations to use pictures, footages and even letters which are more than 100 years old where the original owners are DEAD without much hassles with the copyrights laws, after all too many people are scheming enough to make money out of lawsuits by seeking statutory damages.

However, there is just one thing which is the matter of TRUST. How would I know if the law really guarantees that my rights to my works and I'm protected WITHOUT having some MUTHAFUCKAS using my works without my permissions and called my works as "ORPHANED" WITHOUT even did a FUCKING Diligent search? The real problem is that with piracy so RAMPANT these days, MUTHAFUCKAS may use ORPHANED WORKS as an excuse or loophole to get away scot free and we are talking about ABUSE here. Especially stock photos taken from digicams and uploaded online where the stockphotographers can seldom produce any hard evidences that the photos belong to them, even with hi-res photos which could also means that they bought from elsewhere.

What more, with so much hassles with the copyrights laws like the case mentioned above where photo shops won't retouch your parents' worn out wedding photos if you can't get approvals from the guy who shot it 30 years ago. Such hassles are the results of unnecessary acts in the copyrights laws where couples aren't OWNERS to their very OWN wedding albums, so I can't even be entitled rights to my ID photo with my ugly face on it?

As long it doesn't affect artists, writers and photographers who are still ALIVE, I don't FUCKING care about it as long MUTHAFUCKAS don't use that ORPHANED clause or I will FUCKING go after their asses. With image editing sotfwares capable of retouching and wipe away watermarks, MUTHAFUCKAS can FUCKING use that ORPHANED clause to cover up their acts. So what's the best way to protect your works? Never show them? Let's face it, the bill can't fully GUARANTEE protections of owners to their works as long PIRACY and ILLEGAL USES of copyrighted materials are still so RAMPANT where the ORPHANED WORKS clause only applies to those WHO ARE DEAD...