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Orphan artworks compromise proposed
Edit: BEFORE THIS THREAD GETS LOCKED AS A DUPLICATE! This is NOT a thread about the orphan works bills in their present state - there were at least half a dozen other threads about that. This thread is specifically about the alternative suggestions made by Lawrence Lessig in the NY Times. If you have questions/comments about the Orphan Artworks legislation currently before congress, please reply in the appropriate thread. Lessig's compromise suggestion: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opini … ref=slogin May 20 08 10:20 am Link Translation? May 20 08 10:21 am Link This is quoted from here: http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2008/0 … rsion.html The ASMP wants you to treat the Senate Orphan Works bill like this: Re: S.2913, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 Dear Member: On May 14, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved some revisions to its version of an Orphan Works amendment. You can see the full text of the bill, as revised, here. In spite of ASMPâs efforts, the bill does not provide even the minimum protections that ASMP considers necessary for photographers, and it is now time for the members to make their voices heard in the Senate. We urge you to write to your Senators as soon as possible. You can find the name and contact information for your two Senators here. (After you have selected your state, your Senators will be the first two names in the list.) You can find a letter that you can copy and paste, print on your letterhead and fax to your Senators, here. Please feel free to change the wording as you wish. It will take you only a few minutes to create and send these letters, but they will be some of the best used minutes of your career. Thank you for your support in this important matter. Victor Perlman General Counsel American Society of Media Photographers May 20 08 10:22 am Link J C KUNSTFOTOGRAFIE wrote: Search past threads on MM. May 20 08 10:25 am Link Basically many art organizations where the artist is regularly attributed or easy to find (you can look up lyrics to a song online for example, and find who wrote it) actually support the bill as written, as do some big business interests such as Google and the Getty Archives. Others where the artist is difficult to find and whose works are often not attributed on publication (e.g. photographers) have largely come down against the legislation as written. This is one proposal to try to satisfy all parties. Worth taking a look at. May 20 08 10:32 am Link Yes, but it was proposed by a publication, not by a member of congress. May 20 08 10:36 am Link As I understand it, from information from celebrity photographer Michael Grecco, The these provisions hurt photographer and make it easier for someone to use the image and then just declare it an orphaned work. Not to mention that we would now have to register the images we take twice. Once with the copyright office and once with the orphan works registry. May 20 08 10:41 am Link Alan from Aavian Prod wrote: Yes, I didn't mean to imply this was proposed on the floor of congress. May 20 08 10:44 am Link Jeremy Lips Photography wrote: There are other objections beyond those you list. May 20 08 10:46 am Link Fotographia Fantastique wrote: I realize I did not list them all......I am not educated enough on the topic to go into more specific detail, so I thought I would leave that to someone with more knowledge. May 20 08 10:48 am Link Orphans Works Act of 2008 bill number s.2913 Link to current version of bill so you can read it (May 15, 2008). http://www.asmp.org/news/spec2008/COE08543_xml.pdf 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 http://rasadesign.com/orphan-works-bill.html 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/ 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 1 (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 20 08 11:46 am Link compromise means nobody wins, thats not generally a good idea and to be honest the whole orphan works thing is sad, big business once again screwin the little guy, this time the artist takes one for the team and thats just wrong May 20 08 11:50 am Link Imagemakersphoto wrote: you have a good understanding of this, well put man May 20 08 11:51 am Link Imagemakersphoto wrote: This private company thing disturbs me. Remember when congress passed legislation that required gas stations to use a special sized gas nozzle for unleaded gas so it'd be different from leaded gas? May 20 08 12:00 pm Link Mikes Images - Mike #4 wrote: Actually it has already been suggested that Google or the Getty Archive might be backing this legislation for precisely that reason. May 20 08 12:08 pm Link New email from ASMP ASMP Urgent: contact your Congressperson Dear ASMP member: Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 21, the House Judiciary Committeeâs Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property will hold a closed-door session on H.R. 5889, the orphan works bill. It is crucial that all of the protections for photographers that have been included in the current language of that bill stay in that bill, without change or erosion, and that nothing is added to the language that would be to our detriment. Time is short, and it is essential that you act, and that you act immediately! We are asking those of our members whose Representatives serve on the Judiciary Committee to contact them immediately. Time is critical, so please send a fax or email as soon as possible. There is a sample letter that appears below, and at http://asmp.org/news/spec2008/model_letter_HR5889.php on our website, that you can copy and paste, being free to edit as you like. Below, you will find a list of committee members. If one of these members is your Representative, you need to act now. Or, you can find who your Representative is at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/. When you click on his or her name, you will see a list of his or her committee memberships. If you see either âHouse Committee on the Judiciaryâ or âSubcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Propertyâ listed, please send the message that appears below. If your Representative does not serve on the Committee or Subcommittee, you need not take any action at this point. We will need your help later, but not right now. Thank you for all of your support. We know that many of you have been eager to take action on the subject of orphan works legislation, and this is the time! Todd Joyce ASMP President SAMPLE LETTER Re: H.R. 5889. the Orphan Works Act of 2008 Dear (Mr./Ms.) __________________: I am one of your constituents, a professional photographer, and a member of the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP). I am writing to thank you for including many important protections for professional photographers in the current (May 20, 2008) language of H.R. 5889 and to urge you not to approve any changes to that language that would reduce those protections or in any way, directly or indirectly, be to the detriment of professional photographers. By way of example, the requirement that infringers must file a Notice of Use before using an orphan work and that all such Notices must be maintained in a âdark archiveâ are critical to protecting our interests under this Bill. Orphan works legislation is entirely for the benefit of the user community at the expense of the copyright owner community, particularly the creators of visual artworks, such as professional photographers. The current language of the bill contains the bare minimum of what photographers need and can accept, and any reductions in the protections for photographers, direct or indirect, will make the legislation unfair, unreasonable and unacceptable. The user community must realize that it is getting access to copyrighted works for free, so it is completely appropriate for its members to be required to comply with some administrative requirements. Similarly, the Copyright Office exists to serve both the public and the copyright owners, and it must be willing to comply with any reasonable changes in its procedures that would benefit both groups at reasonable cost. The current language H.R. 5889 already erodes my rights under the Copyright Act. I urge you to protect my existing rights and not to allow any changes that would be to my further detriment in any way. Thank you for your time, attention and support. Respectfully yours, (your name) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ May 20 08 02:19 pm Link Bumped due to yet another new thread about the act. Perhaps instead of a petition someone could let legislators know, there are other options in their 'form' emails. May 20 08 06:38 pm Link Sorry, I mean at least 2 more threads about it. May 20 08 06:39 pm Link LeDeux Art wrote: Actually, there are legitimate issues surrounding orphan works--libraries (other than just fair use), many kinds of research (outside the fair use scope), etc. May 20 08 09:23 pm Link I took a look at the Lessig proposal. I don't completely endorse it, and it needs some fleshing out of detail, but it seems to me that it solves the worst of the problems with the current bills, and has the great advantage of being simple to administer and understand. May 20 08 11:42 pm Link Alan from Aavian Prod wrote: Let's be fair. Lessig carries more clout than many members of Congress, and he does so in his back pocket. May 21 08 12:18 am Link Overall, I like Lessig's proposal. 14 years is plenty of time to get around to registering something you care about. The only thing I don't like is having to use a private company to register my works. Instead, I think the LoC should accept digital registrations for a small fee, and then make those submissions available to third parties who develop the *search* technology. The search companies would pay for the bandwidth to drink in the types of works they specialize in (books, photos, music, etc.). That way, the barrier of entry for competing search services will be low enough to drive the technology forward, and all search companies (and thus all searchers) will have access to the same corpus of works. This also protects against issues that could happen if a search company goes belly-up, and protects authors from high prices and having to register with multiple firms to cover all their bases. May 21 08 02:38 am Link Kevin Connery wrote: Yes. One of the big proponents is Duke University which is interested in film preservation, but cannot make restoration to film prints which they cannot find the © holder for, and which will probably degrade to nothing long before entering the public domain. May 21 08 10:49 am Link Fotographia Fantastique wrote: I agree with this. I also agree that the current bill is not the best solution, nor even an acceptable solution. While I could quibble with the Lessig proposal, it certainly is a step in the right direction. May 21 08 11:05 am Link |
