It will affect whether or not you can get money for photos used online without your permission — those photos where the party using it claim they could not find the photographer credit of the photo and can be safe from any action being taken against them.

This also means photographers really should be making sure they have their metadata attached to their photos.

An explanation of this possible future law.

Wikipedia page

This bill has photographer concerned especially in the increased usage of photos online and the theft of photos from sites like Flickr.com

From a recent PDN article:

“The phrase ‘orphan works’ refers to creative works for which the copyright holder is unknown, often including historical works. The copyright office has sought to make these works available for people such as documentary filmmakers and museums to use without fear of being sued for infringement. Some photographers and stock agencies worried that making orphan works available for free use would let infringers resell any work that doesn’t have a credit attached.”