W Thomas Miles wrote:
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...

Find the full text and reports here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.2913:

SunArcher Photography wrote:
Didn't someone post on MM that this didn't even pass committee?

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."

Ms Mandy wrote:
What prompted this change, do you know?

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.

Allen Underwood  wrote:
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.

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.

'Orphaned' works were a problem for museums and conservationists because, if the owner of the work could not be found, they had no permission to restore or display the work. Those of us in opposition to the bill are careful to laud the intent and goal of the bill to preserve art, but not at the expense of individual property rights. In short, This is a very bad solution.

Allen Underwood  wrote:
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.

thats how the good old U.S.A. does it

J C KUNSTFOTOGRAFIE wrote:
What recourse do we have, just in case this dastardly legislation gets signed into law?

(1) Repeal (nearly impossible)
(2) Having the law struck down by the court on constitutional grounds (damage will be done)
(3) Register all your work across all databases that spring up at about $15 a pop and pray that you suck so bad that nobody will want to steal your work. )

Most of the opposition is concentrating on stopping the law, but a lot of us are thinking that it's a lost cause: The bill will pass. It's on for a floor vote tomorrow after only a day out of subcommittee (This bill has rocket power: Introduced a little over a week ago, no debate, passes subcommittee and goes to Floor with the House of Representatives basically giving their up their version of the bill without even a murmur in favor of the worse Senate version).

So, we're concentrating on making this new law into a poison pill that three presidential candidates will want to publicly denounce. We need to stop calling it an Orphan Works Act and start calling it John's, Hillary's or Obama's Orphan Works TAX.

Introduce the 'fee' as a line item on all invoices.

Link! Link to my page on the issue from other forums, your profiles and web sites. This makes it easier to market the issue through Google. I'm in Washington, DC and at least one of my clients is testifying in Congress on this issue.

Always make the Bill Personal and every mention of the bill, after it becomes law, should be attached to the name of a congressman that voted for it or to one of our three senators who want to become president.

Ms Mandy wrote:
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.

That smacks of 'common sense'! You can't have that and run for congress.

Wayne Sclesky wrote:
Leave it up to our government to screw things up!

And leave it up to the creatives to let them.

Tabula_Rasa wrote:
That smacks of 'common sense'! You can't have that and run for congress.

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!

Tabula_Rasa wrote:

That smacks of 'common sense'! You can't have that and run for congress.

I disagree.. you can have it and run for congress but when you get elected you lose it.

Allen Underwood  wrote:
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

Oh come on, that's a pathetic excuse....if I want to reproduce a family photo, chances are it's gonna be on my fireplace mantle and not slapped into the pages of some magazine (or whatever other avenue they may choose)....and how would that start a copyright suit?

Allen Underwood  wrote:
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 today’s 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 won’t 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 person’s 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 ‘model’ 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?

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.

Mark Reese Photography wrote:

I disagree.. you can have it and run for congress but when you get elected you lose it.

You don't 'lose it' ... you 'sell it'.

Moore Photo Graphix wrote:
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.

THANK YOU!

It will be really helpful to me if you can link to http://rasadesign.com/orphan-works-bill.html

I'll be using the page as a container page for other information and using the link popularity on Google to make spreading the information easier. That's what we do: Marketing.

Imagemakersphoto wrote:
This is yet another reason to ALWAYS include the photographers contact info in the metadata of every image

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.

Considering that most portfolios are 20 images and it costs $35 to register your work at the copyright office, this is a 'tax' of $700 per registrar (there has to be a minimum of 2) for just your Model Mayhem Portfolio. $1,400.00 I'm sure we can all afford that.

PhotoDr wrote:
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!"

Hmm... that's actually a good idea.

PhotoDr wrote:
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!"

Haha!

Tabula_Rasa wrote:
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.

Companies owned by Getty, Google or Corbis, probably.

Kinda like paying the thieves not to rob you.