On January 31, 2006, the Copyright Office provided the Senate Judiciary Committee a report on the orphan works problem. You can download the full report (a lengthy one, at that) here.

The report sparked healthy debate (e.g., at American University Law School’s Glushko-Samuelson IP Clinic, on Feb. 24, 2006) and a number of blog comments (from Eric Goldman, Mike Madison, and Rebecca Tushnet, to mention just three of many).

On Monday, May 22, Rep. Lamar Smith, the chair of the i.p. subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced H.R. 5439 to amend the Copyright Act in a manner responsive to the orphan works report. The text of the bill isn’t at Thomas yet, but I’ll add a link later when it is. According to Rep. Smith’s press release, “[t]he Orphan Works Act is the product of over 20 hours of negotiations among various interested parties and the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, chaired by Smith. It incorporates language from a year-long study conducted by the United States Copyright Office.” The bill is scheduled to go directly to markup today.

The Chronicle of Higher Ed blog, The Wired Campus, covers the new bill here. (Hat tip to Siva.)

UPDATE: Public Knowledge summarizes the new bill, and links to a pdf copy of the text.