New Copyright Database for “Orphan Works”

Stanford has unveiled a new searchable database that logs the status of so-called “orphan works” published in the United States between 1923 and 1963. If you want to see whether such a work is still under copyright, the database provides a first place to check, although it is not a guarantee that the work has not entered the public domain. Here is a post from the Chronicle of Higher Education blog about the database. Here’s a link to Stanford’s Copyright Renewal Database.