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What is it?
It’s really two bills right now, one in the US House and one in the Senate. You can read the bills here:

Senate
House

Although titled differently by each legislative body, I’ll just collectively refer to the OWA (orphan works act).

Each covers essentially the same ground; they modify existing copyright law to address the problem of ‘orphan works’. Orphan works are materials that fall under copyright statute (they are created works) where a copyright holder is assumed to exist, but cannot be located. You might think of them as abandoned (or thought to be abandoned) pictures, text, or designs.
How did it come about?
The hubbub and attempt at legislation goes back to 2005, when the Copyright Office completed a study on orphan works. They found that the vast majority of artistic works either weren’t being copyrighted in the first place, or weren’t being renewed (the renewal rate was on the order of 15%).

This was seen as a burden for users of existing materials, especially libraries, museums and other non-profits. An example might help here.

Suppose you find a great little haiku on the Internet. It illustrates just what you want for your chapter on alliteration. Can you use it? Sure. But you open yourself up to lawsuit if the copyright holder sues. Being aware of this, you diligently search online (with Copyscape or another provider). You can’t find an owner. You check with the Copyright Office, but unfortunately, without a copyright date or name (which doesn’t appear on the work as you found it) there’s nothing really to search with. Can you use it? How about a picture of a cat for the cover of your book? Maybe an old picture torn out of newspaper…

There’s the problem. And it’s a big problem in the book publishing industry where other works are cited often and sometimes at length. As it stands now, all old works must be assumed protected and can’t be used without significant risk of lawsuit. The OWA attempts a fix to this problem. Their solution is to have approved private companies register materials digitally. Documents and other works could be searched to see who the copyright holder is.

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So, I was cruising down MLK Blvd in my lowrider like usual, and T-Dog and Big Mike were riding with me. While T-Dog loaded his 9mm with a fresh clip, he turned to me and asked, “What’s this open source thing I keep hearing about? Sounds kind of lame, holmes,” and proceeded to empty said clip out the window at pedestrians.

I was busy checking the rear view mirror because Big Mike was in the backseat having a fit of the fear–all twisting his arms and legs while foaming at the mouth. He kept saying something about squirrels.

The question finally registered and I go, “Oh, it’s just a way to streamline your computer needs with superior software at zero cost to you.”

T-Dog stopped firing and got this look of awe, “So, you’re saying I can increase the productivity and viability of my business, work less hours for more money, and it’s completely free and @$!#, holmes? Tell me more!”

So the following is the precise thing I told him:

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