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Comment by freejazz | Hacker News Reader

>I’d expect that if the maker undertook a thorough and well-documented search for the rights holder; then just made it anyway, they’d legally be covered

You're an attorney and don't know that copyright infringement is a strict liability offense?

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In ‘orphan work’ situations as long as a person had made a good faith effort to locate the copyright owner, and therefore isn’t infringing someone’s copyright wilfully; criminal liability won’t apply. The worst you’ll realistically face is an after the fact civil suit

Lol who on earth is talking about criminal prosecution of copyright? Copyright is a strict liability civil offense.

think there’s a misunderstanding. in my jurisdiction we use the word offence to refer to criminal actions. If the penalty is only civil, then this bolsters the case for being bold toward omens treatment of orphan works

But we are talking about US copyright law - that's what the article is about, and there's no real issue with criminal enforcement of copyright. What jurisdiction are you in? It doesn't bolster anything because in the US copyright infringement is strict liability and civil enforcement of copyright actions are frequent. The greater point anyway was that it's odd for you to offer this legal advice while simultaneously not being aware that copyright infringement is strict liability. Now you are also saying you didn't think about the civil context at all. Bizarre.

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