A Bill to amend Title 17, United States Code, to provide for limitation of remedies in cases in which the copyright owner cannot be located, and for other purposes.
Orphan works are - broadly speaking - any copyrighted works where the rights holder is hard to find.
What big companies are trying to do is have the law changed so they can swoop up all these works and call them their own and use them as they please.
What does this mean for the artist (of any form), it means if you have a bunch of work you've done and Disney wants them for their own, they can say they tried to contact you and couldn't find you and their lawyers will slap you down from there.
Mind you, this applies to everything NOT REGISTERED with the copyright office.
http://mag.awn.com/?ltype=pageone&articl e_no=3605
This applies to everyone on this site