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an0ther-artist:

ATTENTION ARTISTS

Copyright law is about to change 

For more than a year Congress has been holding hearings for the drafting of a brand new US Copyright Act. At its heart is the return of Orphan Works

What does this mean for artists? it means it will make it easier for infringers to steal artists works and harder for people who are making or trying to make a living out of art more difficult. This will effect every artist and all the artwork they have created, are creating, and will be created. Corporates, Big businesses, and publishers want this to pass to make money out off artists works without paying us artists for past, current, and future artwork. 

Basic Facts About The Law Being Proposed

 - “The Next Great Copyright Act” would replace all existing copyright law. 

 - It would void our Constitutional right to the exclusive control of our work.

 - It would “privilege” the public’s right to use our work.

 
 - It would “pressure” you to register your work with commercial registries.

 
 - It would “orphan” unregistered work.

 
 - It would make orphaned work available for commercial infringement by “good faith” infringers. 

 - It would allow others to alter your work and copyright these “derivative works” in their own names. 

 - It would affect all visual art: drawings, paintings, sketches, photos, etc.; past, present and future; published and unpublished; domestic and foreign. 

** Ways to stop this or preventing these changes from happening**

 > > > > > > >  DEADLINE IS NEXT THURSDAY: JULY 23, 2015 < < < < < <

 - share, reblog this post, spread it for other artists to take notice and action.

 - You can submit a letter on how this law can be an issue for you as an artist here.

 - Non-U.S. artists can email their letters to the attention of:

Catherine Rowland
Senior Advisor to the Register of Copyrights
U.S. Copyright Office
crowland@loc.gov

More About the Issue

Example Letters

Articles about this - 1, 2, 3, 4

“Right now nobody has to understand copyright law because you’re protected by it, but under the law they are proposing, copyright law wont protect you anymore.”

- Brad Holland (Quote from the video - at 1:23:30)

PDFs via the official US Copyright website:

• Orphan Works and Mass Digitization
  
• The Next Great Copyright Act
  

More information:

• Return of the Son of the Orphan Works Act by Tom Richmond
  

According to Will Terry, who uploaded the video:

They are working with big corporations who I will also not name who stand to gain big time. Think about a company that has the largest search engine on the internet…they are putting lots of money behind this because there is a ton of money in controlling and selling all of our work. (x)

Which may explain why Googling the Orphan Works and Next Great Copyright Act yields so little results. Please add any extra information if you have access to it, because I couldn’t find much.

I can’t do much as a foreigner, but I sure as hell can bring it to your attention.

Good lord, this is the wrongest thing ever to wrong all over my dash. Support the living fuck out of copyright reform.

There’s no bill about to pass our shithole of a Congress. 

The most substantive thing cited in this scaremonger is some academic journal that’s the most creator-abusive thing imaginable, I guarantee you, because it’s fucking academic publishing where you sign away your copyright to your work for no money whatsoever.

Copyright law as it exists today is a fucking cancer, eating away the intellectual and creative spheres. Orphan works reform is only one of many things that needs to happen, along with shortening terms and strengthening automatic rights reversion. It absolutely needs reform, and any reform is in so embryonic a stage that objections to anything as it stands right now amount to nothing more than shilling for the rent-seeking corporate parasites profiting from their ownership of the ideas they put inside your head. 

I should say that I have reblogged this not having watched the 1:25:46 video, on the strength of the argument and counterargument in the comments alone.

I mean, “I’ve explained this vital political issue nobody is talking about in a ninety minute YouTube video” is an argument with a pretty established amount of strength. 

I really hope Congress passes an Orphan Works bill.

From Radio Free Meredith’s livejournal:

“Orphaned works” are creations likely still under copyright – photographs, illustrations, written works, music, &c. – for which the original creator cannot be found, and thus their copyright status cannot be determined. Orphaned works present a thorny problem in today’s litigious society, because when the question of “who owns X?” can’t be answered, very few people are willing to do anything with X if they fear that they’ll be sued for it.

For instance, suppose that you have your parents’ wedding album, and the photos in it are starting to fade. You go to a photo shop to get the pictures scanned and digitally retouched, so that you can save them on DVD to show your kids in ten years. However, the copyright on those photos belongs to the photographer, not you or your parents. The photo shop tells you that unless you can get permission from the copyright holder, they can’t do anything with the photos. Do you know who your parents’ wedding photographer was? Do they remember? What if the company the photographer worked for has since gone out of business, and nobody can track down the individual person who took the photos? The pictures are “orphaned works”, and no one knows who owns the rights on them.

Or what if you’re cleaning out your great-aunt’s attic, and you find a box full of pictures of your town as it was 100 years ago? The local history museum would love to add them to its collection – but it can’t, unless you, your great-aunt, or somebody can track down the original photographer and secure his or her permission (or the photographer’s estate’s permission, if the photographer’s dead) to donate the photos. (Copyright in the United States lasts for life of the creator plus 75 (EDIT: 70, for works created today, older works are weird, see here for details; thanks for the correction, internets) years, so chances are, even 100-year-old photos are still under copyright. Thank Disney for that one, guys.)

[…]

So, here are six misconceptions that are making the rounds about orphaned works, and a short explanation of why each one is a misinterpretation or just a flat-out lie. I also give links to useful supporting material, and resources you can use to keep track of this issue as it evolves.

That’s from the last time a Orphan Works bill was proposed, in 2008, but the same arguments are still applicable today. It’s worth reading Meredith’s whole post. 

The anti-Orphan Works arguments really are scaremongering. The Orphan Works bill that’s been suggested is about making it possible for old art to be seen, and preserved, and in some cases reproduced. It’s also about making it possible for big search engines to cover more works. None of that is a bad thing, and none of that is about enabling people to steal our artwork.

Even just reading the OP I was like “holy shit this sounds awesome”

(via clatterbane)

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