Arguably one of the most prevalent issues in the field of Intellectual Property law, both international and domestic, is that of the emerging orphan works problem. Orphan works are any original literary, pictorial or graphic illustrations, and photographs whereas the prospective user cannot readily identify and/or locate the owner(s) of the copyrighted material. This poses a legal risk of liability upon the prospective user for copyright infringement. This thesis focuses on the legal topic of copyright with an emphasis on orphan works legislation. This study compared and contrasted the experiences in the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia which have all enacted legislation to mitigate the issue of liability to prospective users of orphaned works, to the United States which has been reluctant to do the same. Each country has used its own legislative model to mitigate the liability of orphan works. This study sought out to analyze each model as well as compare the legal, political, and economic similarities of each country to test the viability of a particular model being successful in the United States.