We are going to lose copyrights!

[johnboy]

The US Congress, in it's infinite wisdom is poised to trash international copyright law with the euphemistically titled Orphan Works Act. Essentially they are resurrecting the same bill that failed to pass in 2006.

Current copyright law states that you own a copyright as soon as you create something. International law also supports this. The Orphan Works Act would coerce every photographer, illustrator, painter, etc to register all of their work (for a fee for each registery) or risk having it stolen. (And I mean anything. Any and every jot, doodle, sketch rough draft...)

By the way, International law (and current US law) prohbits coersion of copyright registry. That's going to be out the window.

Read about it. Fight it!

And pass this info on.

[xxpinballxx]

I saw a new clip about this and thought how ridiculous it is and what the Government would get out of taking away our rights...it was just a short clip so I didnt get the full story but from what I got there is no benefit for anyone? Thanks for posting I forgot all about it....Ill be sure to look into it again.

[filemanager]

I'm not from the US, but why should one have to PAY a fee to retain their copyright??

[johnboy]

Originally Posted by xxpinballxx

I saw a new clip about this and thought how ridiculous it is and what the Government would get out of taking away our rights...it was just a short clip so I didnt get the full story but from what I got there is no benefit for anyone? Thanks for posting I forgot all about it....Ill be sure to look into it again.

Yes, ridiculous. The benefit? None for "small" people like freelanceers and small studios... and really anybody smaller than a major corporation. It will make it easier for the big companies to steal work. My earlier post has a link to a podcast interview with an established successful illustrator. He talks about it at length, and it's scary. Give a listen when you have a chance.

[johnboy]

Originally Posted by filemanager

I'm not from the US, but why should one have to PAY a fee to retain their copyright??

According to current US law and International law, you don't. So why should we? The answer seems to be to make our work easier to steal.

[xxpinballxx]

THanks again....
thats what they seemed to be saying on the news clip I heard....
Now big companies will be able to use just about any photo they find in ads or brochures or whatever.....I'll listen to it later today.....

[jdepould]

Orphaned works legislation, trouble?

[shutternut]

You might want to take a look at this thread where it was first discussed - there's some information here
on it for you.

[embrodak]

What about the GNU public license? Would that be killed, too?! If not, we should all copyright under it, as it stipulates that any derived works must be free. That way at least businesses can't screw over little people by selling our photographs...

[jdepould]

Originally Posted by embrodak

What about the GNU public license? Would that be killed, too?! If not, we should all copyright under it, as it stipulates that any derived works must be free. That way at least businesses can't screw over little people by selling our photographs...

That's not really the issue. People aren't making truckloads of money selling "orphan" photographs. It's really about commercial use. They want to use "orphan" photos in advertisements.