The Gov says "screw you small town artist"

[YellerDog]

For a limited time? I should have the rights to the things I create until I die, at least. As should everyone else.

Patent laws need limits, there is no reason copyrights do.

God damn, seriously. Imagine pitching an idea to a major company, they turn it down (but file it away), and as soon as the "limited time only" protection is up, they use your idea without paying you, AND IT'S TOTALLY LEGAL?!?!

Fuck that! This is some offensive garbage.

You could see photos you take of your family and kids, or of a family vacation, used in a magazine or newspaper without your permission or payment to you. You would have to pay to register your photos, all of them, in every new registry in order to protect them. Say the average person takes 300 photos per year (I take a lot more than that). If a registry only charges $5 per image, that is a whopping $1,500 to protect your photos that are protected automatically under the current laws. If there are three registries, protecting your images could cost an amazing $4,500. Not to mention the time it would take to register every photo you take. Plus, you will also have to place your copyright sign on every photo.

That's not including all your art, sketches, paintings, 3D models, animations, etc. Do you really have all that extra time and money? Plus, even if you do register, the people stealing your work can still claim it was orphaned and, unless you fight them, they win. Even if you win, you may not make back your legal fees.

It gets even better. Anyone can submit images, including your images. They would then be excused from any liability for infringement (also known as THEFT) unless the legitimate rights owner (you) responds within a certain period of time to grant or deny permission to use your work.

That means you will also have to look through every image in every registry all the time to make sure someone is not stealing and registering your art. You could actually end up illegally using your own artwork if someone else registers it. DOES ANYONE SEE A PROBLEM WITH THIS?

Gee-Zus.

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?

Do you know who owns Corbis? Bill Gates. He doesn't do anything unless it can make a huge amount of money. Helping you lose the copyright to your art is big business for Gates.

I don't know about you cheap faggots who don't create anything and think it all should be free at all times, but this is going to be a major, major problem for working artists.

Writing letters tonight.

[Joust Williams]

"He doesn't do anything unless it can make a huge amount of money."

uh...yeaaaaaaaaah. I mean, I agree with the sentiment and all but this really doesn't help your case with me.

[ChaoofNee]

http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/

There's all of the public, government documentation that I could find.

I'm parading this issue around every creative department at my school and writing some letters. Still, has anyone on the TNL law squad looked this over yet? I don't want this to be "T-Mobile owns Magenta!" again.

[ChaoofNee]

Have another point of view:
http://maradydd.livejournal.com/374886.html

1. "There's legislation before Congress right now that will enact major changes in US copyright law regarding orphaned works! We have to act immediately!"

Actually, no, there isn't. Even the Illustrators Partnership admits this, so I don't know where Mark Simon gets this idea. There may very well be a bill introduced this legislative session, but no such bill has surfaced yet. That gives you, artists and authors, time to get familiar with the actual legislative landscape, research what might be proposed in a bill, and decide for yourself what position to take.

Back on March 13, Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, made a statement before the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property. It discusses orphaned works in detail, and mentions previously proposed legislation that expired when the 2006 House session closed. It was never voted on.

Hmmm... This explains why I couldn't, y'know, find any recent info on this.

Also fun: http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain

[Anthony]

"He doesn't do anything unless it can make a huge amount of money."

uh...yeaaaaaaaaah. I mean, I agree with the sentiment and all but this really doesn't help your case with me.

I was thinking the same thing. That really threw the credibility of his whole article in question with me.

[ChaoofNee]

I was thinking the same thing. That really threw the credibility of his whole article in question with me.

The link I posted calls the guy a total nutjob and quotes laws and facts to do so.

It almost seems like he saw a two-year-old article without noting the date and lost his mind completely.

[Drewbacca]

God damn, seriously. Imagine pitching an idea to a major company, they turn it down (but file it away), and as soon as the "limited time only" protection is up, they use your idea without paying you, AND IT'S TOTALLY LEGAL?!?!

Fuck that! This is some offensive garbage.

They do that now anyway, except without all of that pesky legal waiting time you speak of.

Anybody who produces art, animation or design for a pay check is against any kind of move in this direction. Obviously a lot of this is pointless drumming up of nerves but even as just a topic of debate it's dumb. Who thinks that they have the right to take something scott-free if I create it? Creativity can be a really fucking hard job a lot of the time. This shit doesn't just happen all the time. It's work. The problem with design is that it's hard work some of the time and then easy work some of the time.

People love to point out the breezy 2 hour lunch pub breaks yet forget the 5 day marathon of 3 am mornings spent gutting through the final week of an annual report because if company A doesn't get its report out by such-and-such a date they get penalized up the ass with fines. Of course that doesn't stop them from requesting changes 4 hours from the print deadline, though. It's 11:30 on a Saturday night and I'm working on projects right now.

[Doc Holliday]

*going to delete all my art from TnL so you assholes can't steal them and use them to get women and money*

Why do you have to horde all the women and money?

[Hubbitron]

God damn, seriously. Imagine pitching an idea to a major company, they turn it down (but file it away), and as soon as the "limited time only" protection is up, they use your idea without paying you, AND IT'S TOTALLY LEGAL?!?!

Hallmark + My Aunt Feedee + Rainbow Brite

[Josh]

GUYS! TMOBILE IS COPYRIGHTING THE COLOUR MAGENTA! WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING NOW!