oct11b.indd


C&RL News October 2011  544

Guild, Inc. et al. v. HathiTrust et al., against 
HathiTrust and its research library partners. 
The case has no merit, and completely dis-
regards the rights of libraries and their users 
under the law, especially fair use. The Ha-
thiTrust and its partners have assembled an 
unprecedented digital resource that will ensure 
secure, long-term preservation of nearly 10 
million volumes held in member library col-
lections. The majority of these works are not 
available commercially and will disappear 
completely if not for library stewardship. We 
applaud the modest steps HathiTrust and its 
partners have taken to foster those “orphan” 
works whose owners have abandoned them 
to library care. The HathiTrust adds significant 
value to library collections in support of teach-
ing, research, and learning, while respecting 
the law. It is deplorable that eight authors 
and three special interest groups are trying 
to dismantle this invaluable resource out of 
a misplaced fear of the digital future. We are 
confident the court will not look kindly on this 
shortsighted and ill-conceived lawsuit. 

Authors Guild President Scott Turow wrote 
earlier this year, “I count myself as one of mil-
lions of Americans whose life simply would 
not be the same without the libraries that 
supported my learning.” It is a shame that the 
Authors Guild fails to understand what Turow 
expressed so well, the vital role that libraries 
play in our cultural ecosystem.

As ACRL Washington Hotline readers may 
recall, the June 2011 article was devoted to 
identifying what would be required of a legis-
lative “fix” by Congress to address the orphan 
works problem.  At that time, the members 
of LCA emphasized that a legislative proposal 
must ensure significant benefits for libraries 
over the status quo.  And, it is worth stating 
again, that no orphan works legislation has 
been introduced in the 112th Congress at this 
time. However, the plot definitely thickens … 
in the courts, at least. 

Jenni Terry is press officer at ALA’s Washington Office, 
e-mail: jterry@alawash.org

W a s h i n g t o n  H o t l i n eJenni Terry

Unlocking orphaned works: now or never?
by Corey Williams, associate director for the 
ALA Office of Government Relations

In a troubling and perplexing move, the 
Authors Guild, along with eight authors and 
three special interest groups, filed a lawsuit 
in the Southern District of New York (yes, 
the same court dealing with the  proposed 
Google Book Search settlement), against the 
HathiTrust Digital Library and five U.S. univer-
sities on September 12, 2011.  

The Authors Guild targeted Orphan Works 
Project participants—HathiTrust, the Regents 
of the University of Michigan, the Regents of 
the University of California, the Board of Re-
gents of the University of Wisconsin System, 
the Trustees of Indiana University, and Cornell 
University—because of their arrangements 
with Google in scanning and digitizing books.  

The Authors Guild claims that making, 
storing, and providing access to digital scans 
of copyrighted works is illegal, objecting in 
particular to the Orphan Works Project led 
by the Copyright Office of the University of 
Michigan to identify orphan works—those 
works whose copyright holders cannot be 
identified or found.  

The suit not only asks the federal court to 
bar the HathiTrust and its partners from going 
forward with the Orphan Works Project, but 
goes even further in asking the court to “im-
pound” all copyrighted works in the HathiTrust 
collection pending any relevant legislation.  

The Library Copyright Alliance (LCA)—
comprised of ALA, ACRL, and the Association 
of Research Libraries (ARL)— released a state-
ment in response (full-text available at www. 
districtdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2011 
/09/announce_lca-agvhathitrust_14sept11.pdf). 

We are deeply disappointed by the Authors 
Guild’s decision to file a lawsuit, Authors