Reasonable, extensive, exhaustive: Applying for an Unlocatable Owners license from the Copyright Board

Abstract

An SFU instructor contacted the Copyright Office in 2024 about options for using an out-of-print book as a course text. The publisher is long-defunct, and used copies of the book are hard to find and expensive. After searching for current copyright owner information, I decided to apply for an Unlocatable Owners licence from the Copyright Board of Canada. An applicant is required to research the copyright owner of the work, and that research must be “reasonable” but also “extensive” – and eventually “exhaustive.” What does this mean? And did we get the licence? I’ll explore the orphan works problem and the Copyright Board’s process, and walk through the process, including doing the required research, how long the process took, and what the outcome was.