"There's a bunch of FUD going around the internets today about orphaned works, thanks to this article by Mark Simon of Animation World Network. He's urging artists to write their Congresscritters about eeeeevil orphaned works legislation and screaming about how it will effectively invalidate copyright for everyone except big evil registrars.

The problem? There is no such legislation before Congress (there was a bill in 2006, but it was never voted on; Marybeth Peters of the Copyright Office recently spoke before a subcommittee, but that's not a bill), and Simon is flat-out wrong about every concern he raises.

I've distilled his article down to six key misconceptions, and explained why each is wrong. "

-- Meredith L. Patterson

http://maradydd.livejournal.com/374886.html

Thanks for the link.  I have bookmarked it.  However, Patterson is not quite correct.  While there is no 2008 legislation written at this point, there have been hearings and lobbying to start to get legislation rushed through this session before June.

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In 2008 new legislation is being prepared to take away rights from creators.  It uses the trojan horse name of Orphan Rights and pretends to be about helping libraries and scholars, but the real intent is to help companies avoid paying living photographers and artists proper fees for their work.  It is a resurrected form of HR 5439 (May 2006) and HR 6052 (Sep. 2006) that were killed by concerted action by creators of visual material.

The American Society of Media Photographers and the Illustrators Partnership of America are both tracking this legislation:
http://www.asmp.org/news/spec2008/orphan_update.php
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/ … term=00185
Here is a 48 minute MP3 interview with illustrator Brad Holland:
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

The new proposal is to require creators to register their creations at all of an unlimited number of new works registries, in addition to the Copyright Office.  Companies seeking to use an image would be able to inquire at a couple of obscure registries and then claim due diligence if they did not find the work registered there.  They would then be free to use the image for multiple uses for thousand and millions of copies.  The burden would be on the artist to notice the infringement, absolutely find the company (searching in a couple of places would not count), then notify them, and go to court if necessary.  After all that and paying for their own lawyers' fees, they would only be able to charge whatever usage fee the infringer (not the artist) felt was good.

There is no need for this legislation since libraries and scholars and high school students can use images in reports and papers under the fair use laws that already exist.

Follow the money.  Google, Microsoft, Corbis (owned by Bill Gates), and Getty are lobbying for this.  Many other big money interests stand to benefit from this.  Large companies like Disney that create images can afford to register in many places and have a legal staff.  Medium sized companies and unscrupulous art directors would slip money under the table or buy shady people free lunches to get them to strip watermarks and EXIF info from images to post on websites and forums where they could be claimed as "orphan works".

This is a rights grab against individual photographers and artists and small companies.

Please track this issue and get involved.

See also:
Professor Peter Jaszi.
Anti-alarmist view by Meredith L. Patterson.

This is my understanding of the whole issue.

First you are correct, there is no bill before congress. This is because it has not been presented before congress as a whole, it is still in the works (they are still writing it). We will have to wait till it is actually in "bill form" and has a number assigned to it.

If you are referring to the link posted earlier today (http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html) they didn't say write your congressmen they said to hold off till everything is in writing. They also stated that until it is in bill form and we can't find out what the bill is actually going to do and everything at this point is speculation.

Most of the opinions expressed at this point are based on speculation and knowledge of the 2006 attempt to pass a similar bill into law.

Update of 2008 bill proposal

Orphan Works Bill 2008 - HR5889 - text of bill
http://www.modelmayhem.com/po.php?thread_id=282201