An update for all Artists out there..

The Orphan Works Bill has passed Congress and is now in the House awaiting to be passed.

From: PDNPulse: Orphan Works Bill Passed Senate
[link]


September 27, 2008
Orphan Works Bill Passes Senate

The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act, or Senate Bill 2913, passed the Senate late Friday, according to a press release from sponsor Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), one of the bill's sponsors.

The act is designed to free up for use copyrighted works for which no owner can be identified. Supported by groups such as libraries and schools, it has been opposed by many in the photo community. It still must pass the House (which was considering a different version of the act) and be signed by the president to become law. We'll have more details and reactions on PDN Monday.

Supposedly just these "unidentified owners" will be affected....

However.... it'll be greatly abused and twisted to something sick by companies (people) with no honour or morales...

This is from Urd-chan on a forum I'm a part of.

"If passed, this bill will allow others to effectively "steal"
your art and photos - this includes, but is not limited to, things
like family photos you've uploaded to sites like Photobucket and art
you have on sites like Deviantart. You don't have to be a
professional artist or photographer - anything you've ever posted can
be considered "orphaned". What the government is telling us to do is
to register each and every piece of work with one or more
privately-owned data banks. It could cost you $5 EACH photo on EACH
data bank. And, even then, there is no guarantee that the photo would
be identified during a search."

"Photos and art NOT identified during a search of those databases would
be considered orphaned, and anyone can use them...even for profit.
Your only recourse, should you later find that the picture you took of
your grandmother on her 80th birthday has shown up on a
less-than-tasteful birthday card would be to provide proof that the
photo is yours and take the user to court."

"Watermarks can be removed and pictures can be cropped to eliminate
proof of ownership, so there is really no failproof way to protect
your art and photos. "

(I've looked it up.. there are many sites that can tell you how to remove watermarks.)

"Please take a moment to go to the link below and send your feelings to
your state's senator. After you've done that, you'll be presented
with a page where you can forward the information on to friends.
Please take a moment to also help spread the word. Despite the
opposition of this bill by many artists and artist organizations,
Congress has seen fit to pass it. Don't let it go any further."

[link] com/illustrators partnership/ issues/alert/ ?alertid= 11980321

That means.... Soon.. Your Art will not be yours anymore unless you pay to have proof of ownership.


EDIT OCTOBER 01, 2008

For Non-US Artists of all Medias: [link]



Here is some unpleasant sections the letter from the site:

"This new law establishes yet another new defense to copyright infringement—orphan works. This new limitation on remedies will be imposed on any copyrighted work regardless of the national origin of the author of the work concerned."

"The new law also allows the original work to be manipulated beyond recognition in “mashups”, “remixes” or other digital manipulations and allows the infringer to claim copyright in the derivative work without the consent of the owner of the infringed work."

"In order to challenge the infringer’s assertion of the orphan works defense, a copyright owner must bring a lawsuit in order to determine if the infringer is actually entitled to the orphan works defense. The lawsuit must be brought in Federal court in the United States. The tremendous cost of these lawsuits obviously harms independent artists who own their own copyrights, artists who reside outside of the United States, and smaller copyright owners—they cannot afford to sue to enforce their rights.

This is a radical departure from existing international copyright law and conventions, as well as normal business practices."

"The burden of paying for digitization and depositing the digitized copy with the private registry would fall entirely on the artists. Most professional artists have created thousands – or tens of thousands - of drawings, sketches, photos and paintings. This includes both published and unpublished work. The costs of paying to have all these works digitized and registered would be beyond their ability. Yet the Copyright Office has stated explicitly that failure of the artist to meet this nightmarish bureaucratic burden would result in his work being automatically “orphaned” and subject to legalized infringement."

I am reading it and re-reading this...


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