Artistic Fearmongering!

[The_Rippy_One]

This is long. Most of the good articles on the subject are longer. Please read it anyways, its important. The title is not for shock value, but it takes a while to tie in. (I hope I stuck this in the right forum area).

To start, a excerpt from an interview between Brad Holland, of the IPA (a watchdog group of illustrators), and David O. Carson, general counsel to the Copyright Office (the US agency responsible for dealing with copyrights)

Brad Holland: If a user can't find a registered work at the Copyright Office, hasn't the Copyright Office facilitated the creation of an orphaned work?

David O. Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries.

BH: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register?

DOC: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest!

I don't know how many people know about orphan works, what they are supposed to be, or what the orphan works bill makes them, or the stir they caused 2 years ago.

To recap for those who missed it - orphan works are intellectual property that are still under copyright protection, but the owner of which is unavailable to discuss its use or distribution (for example, an artist who has died whose heir is in a coma without a financial guardian, or a company that went belly up so badly that no one wanted their copyrighted work).

About two years ago, a bill was circulated in Congress to allow the use of these works to produce derivative material under certain conditions.  Except the conditions weren't that the creator was unable to be reached, but simply that he/she/it was difficult to find after a "reasonably diligent search," without defining anything very well. Oh, and it limited damages for running off and selling the resulting derivative works to what the person doing the running considered fair as long as they could prove they looked and the creator was "hard to find."  This bill was shot down.

Its back.  And a little less fair.

The phrase "reasonably diligent search" has been defined, according to all sources, as being not found in a privately run registry. No, they don't exist yet.  No the registry run by the Copyright Office doesn't count. Yes, the day the bill is signed, millions of pieces of work will probably become provably orphaned, to be used by anyone, any way they like, and without the original artists being able to sue for, say, damages and legal expenses, since the work wasn't properly "protected."

So, if this bill passes, and Amber would care to defend her copyrights to DMFA, she would have to register each work - ie page - to each registry.  Yes, as in there are could be more than one.  How many? How many variations of "ArtRegistry.com," "Art_registry.com," "Sculptor_registry.com," "PrettyThings_registry.com," etc. can you think of?

But wait, wouldn't one be enough? not unless the bill requires that every one of them be checked - and no one in the know seems to think "reasonably diligent search" implies that.

Oh, and each page registered could will cost her money, since we're all capitalists here, and these sites provide a "service."

so, on conclusion, Amber's going to need a serious bank loan to protect the artwork she made if this goes through.

And before anyone says "its an artist issue" or a "net issue" - these changes apply to all work, from the graduation portrait your parents keep in a nice frame to the clay pot you made in kindergarden. If you don't register it, you functionally don't own/can't prove the copyright to it - the net just makes it easier for other people to get at it.

Of course, if the bill gets shot down again this doesn't happen - unless the crazy monkeys try it a third time.

Want to help get it shot down? 

Critical Note- the bill isn't on the Congressional Floor yet, so don't fire off any letters - its expected sometime in the next week to month. Unfortunately, its believed that it will be voted on come the end of May (yeah, this thing is fast tracked), which doesn't give anyone much time to mount an offensive. If you want to do something , keep on your toes and plug into a reliable source to find out when to start sending letters, fax, phone calls, what ever you decide to do.

Start by reading http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3605&page=1 (there is a link to an interview at the end - heavy bias (like what I'm writing isn't?) - but it is interesting stuff)! Use http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185 to visit IPA, one of the groups opposing this bill for some more info. Once you understand it, spreading the word - I heard this over at 8-bit theater, and passed it on to you all, assuming that I haven't pissed off a mod and this gets deleted immediately *crosses fingers*

Now, I know there are other groups besides IPA, and frankly I know next to nothing about IPA except that they maintain a resource page on this subject. Ergo, I do not back them to the hilt - heck it could be that they are a bunch of jerks who happen to be on what I perceive to be the correct side of this issue.  Further, I am certain that there are those who support an orphan works law of some type (though this one in particular seems pretty bad), and further, the information I have heard is very biased, and my own reaction should be taken with a grain of salt because of that - If some one wants to play devils advocate intelligently, I welcome it.  (I should note that the basic concept ie - freeing up art when there is no practical owner - seems reasonable to me, its the current approach that raises my hackles).

If Amber or some of the other Canadian folk would like to chime in on how Canada's Board of Orphaned Works (a government run/sponsored arbitrator of whether a particular work is in fact orphaned) is actually working out, I'd really like to know.

[Tapewolf]

Unless something new has come up of which I am unaware, this is about the three-year-old Orphaned works bill, which AFAIK did not even pass.

AFAIK the primary purpose was copyright reform to avoid the unpleasant situation (exacerbated by the recent Copyright extension) where works where the author cannot be traced cannot be preserved or propagated because they still fall under copyright.  This is a Good Thing(TM).

[The_Rippy_One]

Excellent - thanks for getting the ball rolling! Yep, 2005 saw iteration the first of this bill.  We are now on iterartion the second, according to a number of folk.  The major change being the inclusion and definition of these online registries.

As I said at the bottom, I agree with the general goal of getting orphaned works into circulation - its the methodology of the current bill that has me upset.

Getting orphaned works unstuck should not be accomplished in a fashion that turns, or even risks turning, all works into orphans.

And the general council said it himself - "Either your registerd, or your orphaned." to paraphrase.

[Tapewolf]

Excellent - thanks for getting the ball rolling! Yep, 2005 saw iteration the first of this bill.  We are now on iterartion the second, according to a number of folk.  The major change being the inclusion and definition of these online registries.

Hmm... a lot of people have been running around like headless chickens over this, hence the slightly frustrated tone of my earlier post, and perhaps a more cursory scan than was necessary.

Do you have a link to the new bill?  I've read the AWN page over the weekend, but I haven't actually been able to find any proof or references so far that the bill wasn't simply shot down in 2005.  Indeed, this is the sort of thing which the people at Slashdot are going to have a field day with, so I was kind of surprised when there was no furore over it.

And the general council said it himself - "Either your registerd, or your orphaned." to paraphrase.

I've always leaned on the 'information wants to be free' side of things, but yes, this does strike me as being a little excessive.

**EDIT**
I've managed to get the IPA site to load now - it does indeed look like there is a retread of the bill.

[The_Rippy_One]

No bill on the floor yet, so I can't link it, and again I don't advise anyone to write a letter until it is officially out.  Most of what I said is put together based on statements made by people involved in shaping the bill - the excerpt I included, for example, confirmed that there would be multiple registries, that the Copyright Office would not be a valid place of registry (which strikes me as truly bizarre, frankly), and that they would be privately run, all from a source that should know.  Most of what I "know" is pieced together, using highly biased information, no question.

I mean, the first of the two links I posted was highly biased, but its also interesting in part because it was written 4 days ago, and it was written passionately - it doesn't read like a filler on a slow news day, it reads like a breaking story.  Doesn't mean anything by itself, but put it together...

One of the reasons I was so pleased by your initial response was that I know I'm biased, and this topic can't afford to much of that - it becomes something akin to a guy holding a cardboard sign saying the end is near.

I hope you will look around; I hope a number of people look around, reestablish contact made the first time, esp. if they are in the DC local, and dig.  I think I know enough to be frightened, but I recognise that it might not be an accurate depiction of events, and that I need people with differently skewed perspectives to get the actual lay of the land.

Meanwhile, I'll go digging for my links, so I can further back myself up - I am trying to convince people, after all

[Arcalane]

I strongly recommend changing the title of this topic before people get the wrong idea. And they will. This is also probably a rather bad kind of topic to make in your first few posts.

--

Quite frankly it seems like a load of headless chicken flailing to me.

For starters; the registries will just be there to scam people out of money, plain and simple.

Second; this only covers orphaned works. DMFA is in no way an orphaned work. A relatively decent search would pull up the DMFA site itself. I'd say that's more proof than some crappy registry.

Third; headless. chicken. flailing. Calm down and be reasonable about this folks.

Fourth; there are three sides to this argument.

One side - what I've seen - makes it seem fairly innocent and that it's main purpose would be to allow use of specifically orphaned artworks in the case of owner missing/coma or estate issues.

This side, which paints the entire thing as something terrible and to be feared (and if that interview excerpt is real, then I can understand why) and...

The third side, which is just sitting on the sidelines and going WTF at everything and all the flailing and screaming about the sky coming down.

--

If it didn't pass before, what are the chances of it passing again? If it really is this bad, there will be serious repercussions. It's as simple as that.

The hilarious part is that people are supposedly leaving DeviantArt over this and taking down all their art, which strikes me as rather overkill-ish.

[Jigsaw Forte]

Crazy Fearmongering is Crazy.

The Truth is Here.

People have been sounding the "Death Knell" since before Easter, anyway. No offense, but there would be a LOT of companies up in arms about this if it were serious and true. For starters, it adds a HUGE burden to any artist who puts so much as a chickenscratch online -- or for sites that allow uploadable user content. Bye-Bye DeviantArt, Flickr, Myspace, Gaia . . . (oh, God, GAIA... would they have to register each user's avatar, or just their clothing? XD)

Actually, yeah, What ABOUT Gaia and other similar "gaming sites"? What would be an acceptable registry of works? Could the entire game be registered as one piece? What about the "Concept Sketches" for the games? Would a comic book count as "one book" or would each page need to be registered?

I mean, come on, EVERYONE pays for this kind of bullshit. There is no rational way this bill can see the light of day.

Lots of ridiculous bills die before they even get the numbers to get out of committee. This ought to be RIGHT up there.

[Ryudo Lee]

You know... since Amber has pretty much immigrated to canada... doesn't that put her outside the jurisdiction of US copyright law?

[Jigsaw Forte]

You know... since Amber has pretty much immigrated to canada... doesn't that put her outside the jurisdiction of US copyright law?

The US and Canada are both signatories of the Berne Convention, which this new "law" would be in violation of (and hence why it's even more doomed to failure). So while she is outside the jurisdiction of American laws per se, the actual difference between US Copyright law and Canadian Copyright law isn't significant enough to worry about unless this stupidity passes.

[Tapewolf]

You know... since Amber has pretty much immigrated to canada... doesn't that put her outside the jurisdiction of US copyright law?

As I understand it the basic thrust of the argument is that if you don't register the copyright people in the US will be able to use it commercially, claiming that it was an orphaned work. 

This is not unprecedented - until relatively recently US publishers had a tendency to misappropriate the works they printed, 'Lord of the Rings' is a good example - supposedly it took Tolkien some time and effort to actually get any royalties from the US.

Either way, it's not something I'm going to lose a huge amount of sleep over.

[Ryudo Lee]

Worst case scenario, should the stupidity pass here in the US, will it affect Canadian copyright law directly?  Or would they have to pass a similar measure too?

As I understand it the basic thrust of the argument is that if you don't register the copyright people in the US will be able to use it commercially, claiming that it was an orphaned work. 

Well, being in Canada wouldn't she have a legal recourse against that, since by Canadian copyright law her work isn't orphaned (that is assuming they haven't passed this kind of stupidity into law).

[techmaster-glitch]

As I saw Jiggy mention in her blog on her site, whatever happened to the good 'ol time-honored tradition of simply signing your fraking work as proof it's yours?

[Tapewolf]

Well, being in Canada wouldn't she have a legal recourse against that, since by Canadian copyright law her work isn't orphaned (that is assuming they haven't passed this kind of stupidity into law).

Yes, though it would probably be rather expensive.

[Jigsaw Forte]

As I saw Jiggy mention in her blog on her site, whatever happened to the good 'ol time-honored tradition of simply signing your fraking work as proof it's yours?

Well, like I said, it probably needs to be either your name or at least a way of contacting you.

(Worth note, I don't have my name on my Last Resort pages, so I'd probably need to go sneak that in somewhere... then again, it IS on a website with all my other works and tied in liberally with my DA/FA accounts as well as the comic site itself, so...)

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

(Worth note, I don't have my name on my Last Resort pages, so I'd probably need to go sneak that in somewhere... then again, it IS on a website with all my other works and tied in liberally with my DA/FA accounts as well as the comic site itself, so...)

... you mean other than the footnote on every page stating all works are the work of one Insert Name Here, and the author's moral right to bail up infringers in the pub and toast their figgins has been asserted?

[Jigsaw Forte]

(Worth note, I don't have my name on my Last Resort pages, so I'd probably need to go sneak that in somewhere... then again, it IS on a website with all my other works and tied in liberally with my DA/FA accounts as well as the comic site itself, so...)

... you mean other than the footnote on every page stating all works are the work of one Insert Name Here, and the author's moral right to bail up infringers in the pub and toast their figgins has been asserted?

I was referring to the individual page images (and not the site that holds each image), so yes. This said, I still see your point

[rabid_fox]

Whatever happened to share and share alike? I must be the last person who was raised right.

[Ryudo Lee]

That falls under Fair Use, although even that's been coming under fire recently.

[Alondro]

As I saw Jiggy mention in her blog on her site, whatever happened to the good 'ol time-honored tradition of simply signing your fraking work as proof it's yours?

But then a whole bunch of politically-connected cronies who are too stupid to do any real work wouldn't be able tocharge artists and writers billions of dollars for everything they ever create! 

Will someone PLEASE think of the cronies!   

[Jigsaw Forte]

Will someone PLEASE think of the cronies!   

Oh, I'm thinking of the cronies all right.

WITH MAH BOOMSTICK!

[Sufurin Scorda]

Not this shit again.

READ THIS. A friggin' response from the person who made the stupid thing on dA

I hate you people who assume crap and don't go research it. I've already gotten into drama about idiots who think I'm lying just to be a big fat meanie, because I don't approve of what they do. (Yes, furries. Don't ask.)

If you sign your work, you have nothing to worry about. Someone can't use it and go "HEY I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS THEIRS", because hey! Your friggin' name's on it! They could easily find you and ask for your permission. If they don't see it, and can't find you, then they can use it, and if you go bother 'em about it, you get royalties or whatever.

If I see one more thing about the stupid Orphan Works thing, I'm going to rip Bill a new one. > In his fayse.

[Fuyudenki]

If I see one more thing about the stupid Orphan Works thing, I'm going to rip Bill a new one. > In his fayse.

Wait, I forget.  Is that encouragement or discouragement? 

[Sufurin Scorda]

If I see one more thing about the stupid Orphan Works thing, I'm going to rip Bill a new one. > In his fayse.

Wait, I forget.  Is that encouragement or discouragement? 

It's either one, the other, both or neither. Which one do you think it is, Volf?

Remember that you have a 75% chance of being WRONG and that this question is on the test tomorrow. I hope you studied, because YOUR LIFE depends on this test. (which means that if you fail it you fail life forever, like Bill)

[Fuyudenki]

I choose "All of the above."

And then I perform a Murphy Houdini and drive off into the sunset in my yellow submarine.

Oh we all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine...

[bill]

this thread is terrible, like my life

[Cogidubnus]

this thread is terrible, like my life

Aw, c'mon, it's not that bad.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

this thread is terrible, like my life

Aw, c'mon, it's not that bad.

Yeah, some people even want to read this thread.

[bill]

haha, joke's on you, my life is awesome 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

And you said that with a straight face. I'm impressed.

[Zina]

haha, joke's on you, my life is awesome 

Even with the AIDS?