Public Domain Enhancement Act
The draft law "Public Domain Enhancement Act" (PDEA, "Law for the Promotion of Public Domain ") was built between 2003 and 2005 in the US Congress submitted and proposed a symbolic tax on each copyrighted work. The purpose of the law was to simplify the identification of the author - after all, every author would have to be recorded in a tax register - and to release works protected by copyright, whose authors had not paid the tax, as orphaned works in the public domain.
The proposal was made by Zoe Lofgren and John Doolittle in response to the failed constitutional lawsuit by Eldred v. Ashcroft filed (see web links) to counter the previously enacted Copyright Term Extension Act . In the more recent draft, the tax should have been paid multiple times: one dollar fifty years after first publication or on December 31, 2006, whichever is later; and then every 10 years until the copyright protection period expires. Only works published within the United States would be affected by the tax, as such a tax may be inadmissible for foreign works after the so-called three-step test .
However, if the tax is not paid even after a grace period of six months, the copyright protection of the work is irrevocably forfeited, with the reservation of remaining copyright protection abroad in accordance with the Bern Convention . If the amounts are paid on time, the works enjoy the standard protection period in the USA of currently 70 years since the death of the author or 95 years since publication (in the case of commissioned work). Ultimately, the bill would be in line with the copyright protection that existed under the Copyrights Act of 1909 - but with the option to extend protection after 50 years.
The purpose of the law is to solve the problem of orphan works, because the correct identification of their authors often requires costly research. In the case of works that have not been reprinted for a long time, it is often not clear whether the author has died or transferred his rights to another person. If the author does not take care of his rights to the work, they would expire according to the proposed law, after which the work can be used by everyone. The bill also stipulated that the Copyright Office - part of the US Library of Congress - should maintain a database of all copyrighted works so that potential licensees can track down the creator and negotiate permission.