As a visual artist, I have always known about the decades old copyright system in place for artists; in a nutshell, as soon as you write the copyright symbol on the work, it's good enough for the courts. You were always able to register your work or submit it for copyright, and this works well for many professional photographers and illustrators.
Well, all of that could change if legislation sponsored by Rep. Howard Berman of CA gets through the House. The issue in question is how to address fair use guidelines for works where the original author can not be identified. Unfortunately, this could lead to coerced registration with private registries (costing potentially thousands of dollars) in order to protect your rights.
I've read some extreme rhetoric from both sides of the issue, but it speaks volumes that many free-lance photographers have been active in opposing the legislation. It seems to me that the current laws work well and the only use this new legislation has is to enrich registry companies and make it easier for people to use your art without permission. The major problem is that the window of opportunity for making your voice heard on the law is shrinking fast!
Check out the details after the jump:
First, some excerpts from a column by Mark Simon. I do not know where it originally appeared; I had it forwarded from a Myspace blog:
An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration. In the same way that an orphaned child loses the protection of his or her parents, your creative work can become an orphan for others to use without your permission.
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Currently, you don't have to register your artwork to own the copyright. You own a copyright as soon as you create something. International law also supports this. Right now, registration allows you to sue for damages, in addition to fair value.
The only people who benefit from this are those who want to make use of our creative works without paying for them and large companies who will run the new private copyright registries.
These registries are companies that you would be forced to pay in order to register every single image, photo, sketch or creative work.
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Currently, you don't have to register your artwork to own the copyright. You own a copyright as soon as you create something. International law also supports this. Right now, registration allows you to sue for damages, in addition to fair value.
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It is currently against international law to coerce people to register their work for copyright because there are so many inherent problems with it. But because big business can push through laws in the United States, our country is about to break with the rest of the world, again, and take your rights away.
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The people, associations and companies behind the Orphan Works bill state that orphaned works have no value. If that were true, no one would want them. However, these same companies DO WANT your work, they just don't want to pay for it. If someone wants something, IT HAS VALUE. It's pretty simple.
Some major art and photography associations, or I should say, the managers of the associations, support this bill. The reason they support it is that they will operate some of the registries and stand to make a lot of money. Some have already been given millions of dollars by the Library of Congress. Follow the money and you will see why some groups support this bill of legalized theft of everything you have ever created.
Two proponents of this new legislation are Corbis and Getty Images. They are large stock photo and stock art companies. They sell art and photos inexpensively and are trying to build giant royalty-free databases. Do you see how they could benefit from considering most works of art in the world orphans?
He offers some good links to more info on the bill and you can read the entire article here (Myspace Blog).
I've done some more digging and found out that Democratic Congessman Howard Berman has been instrumental on this issue as a chairmain of the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. As this article makes clear, Berman has had some input from Artists and photographers on the bill, but it might not be enough to fix what could potentially be a horrendous piece of legislation. The above article also makes clear that this bill will get exactly zero publicity and will likely come to the floor in May.
It is imperative that we contact our members of Congress in order to defeat the current bill. Much like the fight over FISA, big companies that will control the registries warn of dire consequences if the law is not updated; in fact, the current law has been working just fine for quite a while now and there's really no need to change it. Google "Orphan Works Bill" and just take a look at the opposition across the board.
Copyright is an important issue but that doesn't mean we should let giant conglomerations dictate what the terms of future fair use will be. Join me in my fight, won't you?
P.S. If you come across any more info on this issue or see something I didn't, please post it here!