It has been 3 years of delays and battling, but the Orphan Works legislation is on the move again and we have to stop it from getting passed.

If passed, we will loose all the rights to our own artwork.

All artwork will have to be registered (even if already copyrighted) with a registration company in order to be protected. However, with the possibility of multiple registration companies arising, your work can still be unprotected if only registered with one registration company and not all the others. Unregistered work will be deemed "orphan work" which is free for anyone and any company to use as they want, without your consent, without giving you compensation, and you have no rights to the work. Furthermore, it will cost money to get works registered, which would make a person bankrupt if they had to register all the works they want protected, with all the registering companies. This law works against artists and benefits large companies who want to be able to use artists' work without paying the creators, and companies that can reap in huge sums of money by becoming a registry.

Worse yet, someone else can register your work before you do and even sue you for using your own work illegally. How outrageous is that?

Please read this article from Animation World Magazine for the complete picture of the critical situation we are in:
[link] <--go to "Mind Your Business" link.

and here is the audio interview on the matter:
[link]



EDIT: Please research more into this bill too, to avoid any possible conclusions made from incomplete knowledge of the issue. I don't presume to know everything on it either, but have been reading what I can on it. Just be careful what you read and assess things carefully.

I have read the latest hearing I could find from the House subcommittee on Intellectual Property titled, "“Hearing on Promoting the Use of Orphan Works: Balancing the Interests of Copyright Owners and Users” . [link]

From reading that it appears that the Orphan Works legislation is in the interest of promoting better relationships between users and owners by having private registries help users search for the owner of works in question. They mentioned the possibility of owners becoming more active in getting their work registered also, to be part of the system and be more active in protecting their work rather than rely on the passive copyright protection they have. There is the mention of scholarly uses for orphan works by museums and students as well. They want to help users from committing infringement unintentionally, and to help them search more easily for owners, helping our culture with the products users would otherwise have been prevented from making because they cannot find the owner to some work they want to use. That definitely sounds pretty good... helping out users of all kinds like that... but there isn't true mention of the negative side effects to artists, the owners.

The points of view I'm seeing in multiple journal entries go between two camps. One enraged, and the other more submissive or calm. The latter side sees the good in the bill in trying to clear up orphan works for public use, but there is a similar trend that some of them do not see the other side of the argument which is that with private registries there comes a whole bunch of problems... problems that Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner of the Illustrator's Partnership outline clearly.

If you take the time to read their posts, you will understand why the bill is a problem.

It's true, the new 2008 bill is not out yet so far as I know. Neither do registries exist right now, but just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean we should sit back and let it... The bill didn't pass for 3 years because they (groups such as the Illustrator's Partnership) were fighting it for us... we can't just keep depending on that when the big companies are supporting this bill now and there is a push to get this bill passed quickly. We know what the new bill mentions which is what we are fighting. We don't know exactly what the bill says but the Illustrator's Partnership has gathered information from people such as a lead attorney for the Copyright Office whom warned them "that under their [Congress'] plan any work not registered with a private sector registry would be a potential orphan from the moment it was created. "

Definitely, we should not panic... but that still doesn't mean we aren't enraged about this, and with reason. I read the calm entries and see their points and they are right about the good points of the orphan works legislation... but that is exactly what the bill authors want you to believe in, only half of the picture, the side that looks better. What we angry people are talking about is the stuff they aren't mentioning at the hearing.

No need to spit all the reasons out again, just read these articles please.

[link]

I would also like to mention: The calmer posts refer to the government in no way trying to legalize art theft. The thing is, they obviously do not say "we wish to legalize are theft" in their hearings and in the bill... it is with carefully chosen wording that they provide their good intentions, which leave out the negative side effects to artists. Are we all angels in this country? Laws don't have to be made if we are all filled with such good intentions all the time. The point is, there is the potential for people and companies to exploit the Orphan Works legislation for their benefit in using work that are deemed orphan work, from artists who couldn't possibly register all their creations with all the possible registries, nor even keep track of all the possible infringements that could be made. It's true there is no mention of words like "we want to strip you of all your copyrights" but the way the bill is would turn even a copyrighted work into an orphan work just because the user couldn't find it after a reasonable search and effort was made in some number of registries... thus it is like your work were never protected to begin with. Points like that are why there is such loud noise made about the bill.

I understand people's frustration with spam and screams and large capitol font typed in their face about the bill over and over... well, the news spread and now people need to be informed. I think we are moving along really well in preventing the bill with all the people who have gotten an understanding on the issue. Let's stay positive- and informed on this. In the meantime I agree with *travsthebean to keep creating.