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Senate Bill: Say goodbye to your copyrights
Orphans Works Act of 2008 bill number s.2913 is coming out of subcommittee and will go for a floor vote tomorrow. The house version of the bill is being pulled and the Senate version will be law. For those of you who have not been following it, let me explain how it impacts you as photographers, illustrators, models, etc. Under current law, the act of creating (or being part of an image) gave you copyright protection so that people could not use your work without permission and without compensating you. If you 'chose' to formally register your work, you were granted even more protection, but this was not required. People who flagrantly stole your work could pay as much as $150,000 to you for the damage. Under the Orphans Works Act of 2008 bill number s.2913, you will have to pay to register all work through at least 2 registries, both of them would be private companies. Further, if somebody can prove that they 'tried' to find you with a search of the registries, your work would be considered 'orphaned' and they can use it without your permission. Even if you 'showed up' and were able to prove ownership, you could not claim more than the 'fair price' that the USER would have had to pay, anyway. No punitive damages and no way to collect on the damage it causes you. Since this effectively disengages us from the Berne Convention on International Copyrights, under this system, you may have NO COPYRIGHT protection overseas. To put it even closer to home, imagine if somebody came across one of your images and decided to use it as the logo of their porn site. After a 'search' in which they are motivated NOT to find you, they grab your work and use it. You will not be able to do anything about it. The cost to go to court would exceed the amount you could possibly gain and you cannot recover court and legal fees. There is more information on this on my site at http://rasadesign.com/orphan-works-bill.html and a Google search of organizer "Brad Holland" and "Orphan Works" will give you a ton of info. Photographers, models, illustrators and other creatives are notoriously apathetic and non-active when it comes to politics and issues, but this one hits you right in your bread-and-butter and every career aspiration you might have had to be able to make a living from your work. Getty, Corbis and Google have lobbyists on the hill gaining concessions, so if you were wondering who is benefiting from your work, now you know. Feel free to contact me for more information: [email protected] May 15 08 08:31 am Link As I wrote that, I got this e-mail from Lynn Reznick, who manages Mark Parisi's 'Off The Mark Cartoons.' ------------------- There is an urgent need for you to contact anyone and any organization's email lists you can think of and URGE people to pick up the phone today and call their Senators' offices and object to the Orphans Works Act of 2008 bill number s.2913 as it is currently written. It's scheduled for a full Senate floor vote on Friday. IT IS WRITTEN SO BROADLY THAT IT WILL ALLOW INFRINGERS TO USE ARTISTS WORK AND PUT AN UNDUE FINANCIAL BURDON ON POLICING YOUR OWN COPYRIGHTS. - The laws as it is written violates international treaties. - I think this bill is particularly onus for photographers. - The law allows people to make a derivate of your work and then copyright the derivate and you can prevent them from using it however they want. - This law will require you to upload your work into at least 2 databases, pay posting fees There is no more time to stand on a soap box with ideas. The house version of the bill is being pulled and the Senate will use their version. It's expected to leave the subcommittee today and have a full Senate vote tomorrow. (FRIDAY) People have to voice their opinion today. People need to pick up the phone today and call their Senators' offices both in DC and in their home state and voice their objections. To locate your senators, hereâs a link to their Washington DC offices but also call your local office. http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_i … rs_cfm.cfm Request meetings with your legislatorsâs staff to voice your objection. To send email letters, use this convenient tool http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ I repeat, get this out to as many photographers, graphic artists, and other creator people TODAY. If it passes the Senate, we then have to work on the Legislators in the House. Letâs defeat this bill now. Attached is an Editorial Cartoon that you may freely distribute or post with any communication. A high resolution (Print) and low resolution (Web) are attached. YOU HAVE TO ACT ON THIS TODAY. Regards, Lynn Reznick www.offthemark.com Atlantic Feature Syndicate, PO Box 760994, Melrose, MA 02176 Phone (781) 665-4442, [email protected] May 15 08 08:33 am Link What prompted this change, do you know? May 15 08 08:42 am Link Does anyone have a link to the actual Bill? I looked on the websites mentioned in the above posts, and can't seem to find one. I'd like to READ the Bill before I start to write people and ask that they not approve it. That only makes sense to me... May 15 08 08:43 am Link Didn't someone post on MM that this didn't even pass committee? May 15 08 08:43 am Link W Thomas Miles wrote: Find the full text and reports here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.2913: May 15 08 08:46 am Link SunArcher Photography wrote: There was a 2006 version that didn't pass. The 2008 version is not only going to pass, it's been pretty much guaranteed to pass. As Orrin Hatch told Brad Holland, "there's nothing you can do to stop this bill." May 15 08 08:48 am Link Ms Mandy wrote: The Bill was ostensibly for the protection of works such as old, early-century movies, out of print books where the author and publishing house is long gone, parts of Americana that could be truly lost because of current copyright laws. Unfortunately, in the attempt to solve that problem, this bill causes an unbelievable amount of trouble for current creatives who depend on their work for their living... or, who simply want control over whether their work can be stolen and used. May 15 08 08:50 am Link May 15 08 08:54 am Link This bill is the equivalent of you being able to walk into a park and see a bike leaning on a tree. If you look around and don't see anyone you can claim the bike orphaned and ride off. If the owner ever sees you riding around he can hire an attorney to call the cops and take you to court. When you get there you, you have to say sorry and explain how you looked around. No charges of theft involved. Hope this doesn't spread to other areas of society. Just because you can't find the owner, doesn't make it yours. May 15 08 09:01 am Link Allen Underwood wrote: Exactly. Well put. Intellectual Property has always been treated differently than physical property with the idea that society has a claim on the artistic and creative works of its members. An artists 'ownership' of their own work, even now, is only temporary: Life plus 50 years. Thanks to Disney, even that time was extended. May 15 08 09:08 am Link What recourse do we have, just in case this dastardly legislation gets signed into law? May 15 08 09:09 am Link Allen Underwood wrote: thats how the good old U.S.A. does it May 15 08 09:20 am Link If the intent is to benefit older works from being lost, artwork not being able to be restored, etc......you would they could include a clause saying "all work BEFORE such and such date....." so that current artists would still be protected. May 15 08 09:20 am Link Leave it up to our government to screw things up! May 15 08 09:24 am Link J C KUNSTFOTOGRAFIE wrote: (1) Repeal (nearly impossible) May 15 08 09:28 am Link Ms Mandy wrote: That smacks of 'common sense'! You can't have that and run for congress. May 15 08 09:29 am Link Wayne Sclesky wrote: And leave it up to the creatives to let them. May 15 08 09:30 am Link Tabula_Rasa wrote: Not just common sense, but not so controversial....oh and what would politics be without the drama? This totally affects the models too considering their image could end up ANYWHERE! May 15 08 09:32 am Link The line I got From Congressmen Joe Courtney was related to a poor families ability to reproduce a family photos when they cant find the photographer. "A common example used in the report included a families' ability to reproduce family photos. In response to this report, legislation was introduced by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) in 2006 during the 109th Congress. The Orphan Works Act of 2006 eased restrictions on reproduction of orphaned works. This legislation failed to move out of committee. " Here are two examples I wrote: ⢠Family and Wedding photography: Under the current legislation, a printer will not reproduce copyrighted material because they can be held liable for damages. However, should the Orphan Works Act pass, the printer is free from liability when a family brings in a photo and claims it falls under protection of the Orphan Works act. As you may already be aware, family and wedding photography is priced in two tiers in todayâs market. The first fee is a sitting fee for family photos and a basic fee for weddings. This fee is usually priced low to encourage people to hire a photographer in the first place. It allows lower income families to obtain a small amount of photographs knowing they can purchase additional prints at a later time. Selling prints is where a photographer makes his living. If there is nothing in place to protect the photographer from people reproducing his works claiming they are orphans, the market will inevitably adapt a different pricing structure that weighs heavily on that initial fee and much less on the prints. This will have little to no impact on upper middle class families. Below that line, the people that this bill is trying to help wonât have photographs to reproduce anyway. ⢠Unauthorized Use: Under the current system of checks and balances, a person who has their photograph taken is protected when a photographer takes a picture of them. Even though the photographer owns the copyright to the image, they is very limited in what they can do unless the person in the photo signs a model release. If a personâs likeness is used in a way that is not authorized they have an actionable situation. Under the Orphan works act, if my photograph was taken and then later used by an upcoming designer to illustrate a billboard that encourages people to practice safe sex for disease prevention. Where is my protection as a âmodelâ in this situation? The photographer is protected because he did not authorize the use. The designer partially protected because he claims orphaned work, his liability is limited to the commercial value of the image. Would you want your image used in such a way? May 15 08 09:33 am Link Tabula_Rasa wrote: I disagree.. you can have it and run for congress but when you get elected you lose it. May 15 08 09:33 am Link Let me make this clear: Congress can get away with this and they KNOW they can get away with this because they KNOW that, as much as you may rant on MM, you're not going to DO anything about it. They know you. They know creatives. At best, you might vote... but, against who? Everybody is on board. They know you won't call, won't protest, won't hurt them in any way. Look up 'miserable failure' and I wonder if this doesn't still point to Bush's bio... and with our power on the Internet (we literally, as an industry make the Internet in a way that Gore only dreamed of) we control information... but we won't and Congress knows it. We need your phone call, fax and e-mail to hit YOUR senator... barely 5% of you will do it. So... ) May 15 08 09:36 am Link Allen Underwood wrote: May 15 08 09:36 am Link Allen Underwood wrote: Again, I'll state very carefully that there are some real issues (and the family album is a classic one) that needs to be addressed... just not with this bill. May 15 08 09:39 am Link Mark Reese Photography wrote: You don't 'lose it' ... you 'sell it'. May 15 08 09:41 am Link Ok, I'll be moving on now...to model junk This discussion just caught my interest quite a bit....have a great day! May 15 08 09:43 am Link I already send a message to my elected officials. I plan to spread this message to other forums to get people aware this legislature and get acting on it. As the old saying goes, there's no use in complaining if you're doing anything about it. May 15 08 09:47 am Link Moore Photo Graphix wrote: THANK YOU! May 15 08 09:50 am Link Article in Photo District News on May 8th 2008 http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/a ⦠1003801084 And APA Responds to PDN's Orphan Works Story on May 12th 2008 http://www.PDNPulse.com/2008/05/apa-res ⦠.html#more Also the ASMP has info on it and keeping it updated as the bills work there way through the House and Senate. ASMP http://www.asmp.org/news/spec2008/orphan_update.php http://www.asmp.org/about/hot_issues.php APA http://www.apanational.com/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1 Illustrators Partnership http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ SAA http://www.stockartistsalliance.org/orphan-works http://www.orphanworks.blogspot.com/ This is yet another reason to ALWAYS include the photographers contact info in the metadata of every image. My workflow now has it as an action that adds it to my RAW images and then I check all images before sending any out or putting on the net. If I recall right, the "Save For Web" in PS strips out metadata so you need to re-add it to have it for the web. An above post of mine included many links with good info on the bills and how different groups stand on the bill. One does have a page for artists (photographers, photojournalists, illustrators, painters,.......) to contact your members of Congress. They have letters all ready written that you can customize and it will send it to your reps. Here is the link. Scroll down to find photographers or what ever art you wish to represent. http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ Regardless of how you feel on this bill, you should read up on it and its impacts on artists. One possibility is having to register your copyright with the a (or multiple) private companies that will act as clearing houses. What a headache that would be on top of registering your work with Copyright Office. May 15 08 10:14 am Link Get pictures of every Senator and Congressman's family who votes for this and use the as ads for porn sites. "My Family loves this site!" May 15 08 10:14 am Link Imagemakersphoto wrote: Just remember that having that information is no longer a way to protect your copyright. You will have to pay to register you work... for EVERY registrar that springs up. May 15 08 10:20 am Link PhotoDr wrote: Hmm... that's actually a good idea. May 15 08 10:21 am Link PhotoDr wrote: Haha! May 15 08 12:38 pm Link Tabula_Rasa wrote: Companies owned by Getty, Google or Corbis, probably. May 15 08 12:52 pm Link Info from the APA: This link will allow you to easily voice your own opposition to the Orphan Works bill. (Scroll down about half way to see "For Photographers".) --- from me: To put this in perspective, the current bill started as a semi-legitimate move by reference librarians. But it was 'hijacked' by Google and other firms which profit massively from infringement. Under current law, thieves like Google live under constant risk of a correct court decision destroying a central part of their piracy-based business model. This bill, as designed by Google et al., and obviously paid for and lobbied by them, would gut copyright and remove any incentive for them to stop stealing. If the bill passes, it would lead to an orgy of theft of creative work. Google at present is the world's largest infringer; this bill would remove ANY incentive for Google and similar piracy-based businesses, to stop stealing. Joel May 15 08 01:00 pm Link I've been spreading the word, forwarding Brad Holland's article to everyone I know - professors, friends, photographers, artists, published authors - trying to get the word out. What gets me is the rude responses I've gotten, one from a Model Mayhem photographer who I've worked with, no less. He emailed me and very rudely told me to take him off my "mailing list." What mailing list? I knew everyone I sent the email to. When I tried to email him back, I found my email address blocked. I emailed him from another address and he insisted he "wasn't rude," that he had "no idea" what I was talking about, and furthermore, that he was already involved through "respectable photographer's associations like the APA and SPA." Then, the funniest thing of all, he pulled out his trump card which just ended up burying him six feet under. "Most of my images are registered through Getty Images." Like that offers him protection! Getty happens to be behind the bill and wants to use it so that it doesn't have to people like HIM for his images. They were one of the parties that paid lobbyists on the Hill to gain concessions. Further, the APA and SPA are split personalities: on one hand they're supposedly against the bill, but on the other they're paying the lobbyists to gain concessions for its membership (although not very successful at it... they lost on every concession). It's people like this guy that make my gears grind.... May 15 08 01:10 pm Link Duplicate of Orphan Works Bill 2008-HR5889 - Discussion thread Orphan Works Act : Write your senators! Orphan Works Bill 2008 - HR5889 - text of bill Extremely Urgent - message from APA to photogs Another pro photog assn speaks on Orphan Works (NANPA) Listen up Mayhem! Copyright Emergency "Orphan Works Legislation, photo theft on Urgent: APA Position on Orphan Works 2008 time warner is trying to steal your stuff (locked) stolen work (âTime Warner passing a billâ, locked) Letter to you from Michael Grecco, URGENT (locked) Fwd: ASMP Urgent: contact your Congressperson (locked: has contact info for members of the committee) Write you orphan rights protest letter now!!!!!! (locked) Orphan Works Act 2008-Horrid potential new law (locked) Senate Bill: Say goodbye to your copyrights (locked) Orphan Works Act from an Artists Point of View (locked) urgent!!!! this impacts photographers!! (APA stance, locked) urgent industry news! (APA stanceâdupe of previous--locked) Orphaned Works law and what it means to you. (locked) orphan works update (locked) Similar to: Orphan artworks compromise proposed (Larry Lessigâs proposal) May 15 08 01:19 pm Link |