Outrage!
Sickened
*, he sums it up well:*The new Orphan Works legislation (whole article here [link] )affects any image created by you. Sketches, notes, emails, photos (even ones of your family), paintings, printings etc. If you want to own them, you have to pay. And pay you will, $$$$$$.
If this bill is passed by US Congress, you will have to pay to own the rights to something you have created. Currently by default you own the rights when you create an original work, but this may be no longer true. That means anyone, from lil' Joe's T-shirt shoppe to "Big Business" companies, can use your drawing of an original character as a mascot or a picture of your dog for a puppy chow ad. This is supporting theft of art, and is immoral.
CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATOR:
Go to [link] to quickly find the phone number, address and e-mail of every U.S. senator, U.S. representative, governor and state legislator.*
Ok, it's Brett again. We really need to stop this from happening or else none of us will ever be able to make a living in the art world. This is big... I just don't know what else to say about it. Just do what needs to be done.
aaaaand, I'm out!
Brett
check the new site: [link]
Devious Comments
From what I gather, the bill essentially does several things:
-It forces artists to register *all* of their work, published or otherwise, with a commercial registry (which don't exist yet; private industry is expected to take the initiative here).
How many of these commercial registries you have to file with is not clear; and any previous copyright registry you may have had (and paid for) becomes null and void under this bill. So, you can imagine the time and money it would take just to get your material scanned, much less the fees to register all of your work anew. (Even $1 per page adds up.)
-Anyone who wants to use your material need only do a "reasonable search" with these registries in order to try to identify you. No "find" you, no pay - they can claim ignorance and get away with it. Whereas, a heavier burden of proof lies with the artist to show who exactly may have stolen their artwork.
From this, it leaves the one who took your work a fox hole to escape in: They can claim that they "found" your work in an altered state, unregistered (name deleted, image altered, etc), or that a phantom middleman came to them with the art in an altered state, and the company was just a suckling babe when it took your work from this copyright grim reaper unawares.
-It takes away existing rights for the artist who's attempting to prosecute any copyright infringer. The legal fees and time spent *in* court make it way too much of a disincentive for an artist as is; imagine when a heavier burden of proof lies with the artist to show who the guilty party was. No lawyer would want to touch a case like this if there's no prospect to win the case.
Upshot is that it places an unrealistically heavy burden on proof on the artist to show the infraction - even when the rip-off in question is blatantly obvious. The case of Michiko Stehrenberger is a good example (sounds like a name out of Usual Suspects, btw...).
-Camel Cigarettes yanked a piece of her art, quite blatantly, and yet it took her several years, tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, and admission under oath from employees at Camel, to show that this: [link] was ripped off knowingly to make this: [link]
...So imagine when the big corporation can have the kind of out that the Orphan Works bill affords them. Even in an obvious case like this. The artist gets screwed. Big business gets an out. And lawyers reap the benefits if and when an artist can cough up the cash to take the infringer to court.
...So, score another brilliant legal maneuver by the U.S.P.Q.R..... I mean, The United States....
Ave commercialism!
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Art Blog: [link]
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Art Blog: [link]
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Some true stories, some exaggerated stories, and lots o' dirty sexy lies... Man-Boys! the comic! [link]
One of his commentators links to here: [link]
Soooo... it may not be ave commercialism so much as ave conspiratorium theorem... and some other Latin goodness.
Talibanus, Al Qaedus; bombus vobiscum...
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Art Blog: [link]
--
Some true stories, some exaggerated stories, and lots o' dirty sexy lies... Man-Boys! the comic! [link]
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