Copyright laws in Jepordy!

Copyright laws in danger!


In an effort to address orphaned works which may be of historical value, legislation has been written that far overreaches this problem, and all copyright laws are in jepordy. They will require an artist to register every piece created in a non-existing registry. It wipes out damages that can be recovered, requires no proof of having worked to find the artist, and basically allows anyone to use your art. It is a poorly written bill.Write your congressman!


Artists: PLEASE OPPOSE House Resolution H.R. 5889 and Seanate Bill S. 2913...TODAY!!

30 April 2008

To artists, friends of artists and anyone who ever longed to be an artist,

There is a piece of legislation pending in both the House and the Senate (Bill H.R. 5889 and Bill S. 2913) known as The Orphan Works Act of 2008. Despite its seemingly laudable ends, this bill needs to be opposed and defeated. And we need to do this immediately! Here's
why:

1. It changes the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act (enacted in 1978), and makes it virtually impossible for artists to protect their work. It basically allows anyone to use a design without the copyright holder's permission.

2. It requires artists to attempt to protect their work by
registering it with a digital data base system (presumably for a fee, in addition to the copyright filing fee)-when no such system exists!

3. It eliminates statutory damages wherever an infringer can successfully claim an orphan works defense, thus eliminating the only tool the law provides to prevent deliberate infringement.

4. It allows for an infringer to create-and copyright-a derivative work from the original design.

The following was posted by Stella on "The Art of Licensing" Yahoo group and sums up the consequences if this bill passes:

"If we do not stop BOTH Orphan Works Bills NOW-
It does not matter that you created it.
It does not matter that you have a copyright mark on it.
It does not matter that it is registered in the Library of Congress. It does not matter that you signed it. It does not matter that you put a big fat watermark across it. It does not matter that you put digital signatures on it. It does not matter if you get a lawyer- you will get a pittance determined by the offending company and no reimbursement for legal fees. It does not matter even if you do as they demand and pay to register it in the new registries that they will form - there is no real punishment for using your work for profit. It does not matter that you do not want your image used on a product or to promote an agenda. They can even sell your prints and make money!"

Or to put it another way, imagine if someone walked down the street and came upon a legally parked vehicle. If in the mind of that person, they could not easily determine to whom the vehicle belonged, would they have the right to drive it away and use it for whatever they saw fit to use it for? Obviously any sane person would think this action would be absurd. This is the situation we are facing with this legislation.

If you would like additional information on the potential impact of this legislation, you can learn more by:

Reviewing the submission to the House by the Illustrator's Partnership https://www.illustratorspartnership....cs/article.php?
searchterm=00261

Listening to Brad Holland's informative webcast: https://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

Also by visiting the following sites: https://www.benjaminhummel.com/orphan.htm
https://www.illustratorspartnership.org


If these bills pass, Artists May Lose All the Rights to Every Piece of Art They Have Ever Created! The issue is about weakening copyright protections for artists and, interestingly enough, Microsoft and Google are behind the bill.

There are differences between the two bills and they both need to be opposed. You can do these by doing the following:

Write/email/fax/call your Reps and Senators and state your fervent opposition to this legislation. (Refer to Bill H.R. 5889 when writing a House Rep and to Bill S. 2913 when writing a Senator.)

If need be, go to the following sites for contact info for your state's officials: https://capwiz.com/gag/dbq/officials
www.senate.gov
www.house.gov

Please feel free to use either of the sample letters at the bottom of this email (edit it if necessary or create your own) and send to your local and/or state representatives and Senators. Personalize your letter with a story on how the Orphan Works legislation will harm your income. Stories are incredibly powerful. These types of letters work best when you make your point clear and make them aware that you live in their district or state and can vote for or against them.

Faxes work better than e-mails....but everything helps.

The Orphan Works Act of 2008 is hugely critical to the possible future careers of artists everywhere and it must be opposed. The vote on the bill is coming up very shortly and I encourage every one of you to write/fax/email/call your representatives and beseech them not to vote for this bill.

Time is of the essence. This legislation appears to be scheduled for fast-tracking. Please act today!

Please forward this message to anyone who can help us on this matter or might be effected by it. And thank you for your time.

A good discussion of this complicated issue is at:

https://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1537

For an Artist who Urges Creators to Fight Proposed Copyright Legislation see

https://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/05/prweb911944.htm

I have strong feelings in opposition to your position. In addition to disagreeing with you about the value of this law I assert that you are misrepresenting what the bill says in order to support a position which I believe is morally reprehensible.

I will (attempt) to leave out my opinion in the following analysis, and focus on the factual misstatements which you have made:

I recommend that everyone read the opencongress page on the bill:
https://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-h5889/show

The summary from the open congress page is:

This bill would limit the amount of damages a copyright holder could collect from an infringer if the infringer performed a diligent search for the copyright holder before using their work. The goal of the legislation is to free up for reuse copyrighted works whose holders cannot be found. It would also set up a process for the Copyright Office to certify commercially-produced visual registries to help people locate the holder of a copyright and prevent the orphaning of works in the future.

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by divine inspiration:

Copyright laws in danger!

In an effort to address orphaned works which may be of historical value, legislation has been written that far overreaches this problem, and all copyright laws are in jepordy. They will require an artist to register every piece created in a non-existing registry. It wipes out damages that can be recovered, requires no proof of having worked to find the artist, and basically allows anyone to use your art. It is a poorly written bill.Write your congressman!

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1. The bill does not require artists to register their art.

2. The bill does direct the Registrar of Copyrights to create a registry, but does not mandate that this is the only form of 'qualifying search.'

3. The bill specifically does require trying to find the artist. See this section which includes:
https://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query...10CYNOG3:e908:

"performed and documented a qualifying search, in good faith, for the owner of the infringed copyright;"

4. The bill does provide limited waivers of damages, but only if the infringer does not negotiate in good faith. An infringer must pay the artist to use their work. Read the bill.

5. The bill does require proof that the infringer conducted a qualifying search.



(I deleted the long forwarded post - it made me too angry to read lies packaged as advocacy)

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by PeriodThree:

1. The bill does not require artists to register their art.

2. The bill does direct the Registrar of Copyrights to create a registry, but does not mandate that this is the only form of 'qualifying search.'

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Maybe a confusion with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who "has suggested an alternative approach. In the Public Domain Enhancement Act, H.R. 2408, which she introduced into the House of Representatives, she proposes the concept of a national registry system. She hopes to avoid the problem of orphaned works altogether. Under H.R. 2408, copyright owners could register their works in a national registry after 50 years. This proposal has the drawback of creating certainty only after a work has been published for 50 years. Title can become very dim in the meantime."

https://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1159347926565

Apparently H.R. 2408 did not make it out of subcommittee.

Sure...it might be a confusion.

But looking on the absolute best light, that would mean that divine inspiration was 'confused' and so posted statements that were actually false.

From a moral perspective if seems to me that promoting a position, and making deceptive statements in support of that position, through ignorance
is not substantially better than simply telling lies.

But hey...I could be wrong.

Quote:

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Posted in reply to the post by Zeno Swijtink:

Maybe a confusion with Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who "has suggested an alternative approach. In the Public Domain Enhancement Act, H.R. 2408, which she introduced into the House of Representatives, she proposes the concept of a national registry system. She hopes to avoid the problem of orphaned works altogether. Under H.R. 2408, copyright owners could register their works in a national registry after 50 years. This proposal has the drawback of creating certainty only after a work has been published for 50 years. Title can become very dim in the meantime."

https://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1159347926565

Apparently H.R. 2408 did not make it out of subcommittee.

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