UPDATE: Revived in 2009! HELP STOP U.S. "ORPHAN WORKS" LAW
THIS GOT POSTED by DAVID KRAVITS in WIRED MAGAZINE 'S BLOG NETWORK
in September '08.
blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/orphan-works-co.html
Looks like it didn't help much, since Rep. Conyers is back with
another "Open Access" law, H.R. 801, designed to remove free
access to scientific research.
If the Orphan Works Act is passed, all of your copyright holdings will be retroactively “orphaned” and lose their
associated protections in the USofA. If you want to keep owning your
work, you will have to register each image with a Copyright Office in order to
regain said protection. In addition, any future work of yours will
have to be registered as well. This will cost you a lot more time,
hassle and money than emailing or phoning the Congressional sponsors
now. SO DO IT!
Text of current U.S. copyright law at:
www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00000...
> UPDATE 12/11/2008 and WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT AT www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan/orphan_works_informat...
The Illustrators’ Partnership of America website explains how this
affects you, even if you are not in the us of a, and what you can do
to fight it.
www.illustratorspartnership.org/
The US Orphan Works amendment is not an exception to copyright law to permit the archiving and preservation of old, abandoned works. It is a license to infringe contemporary works by living artists worldwide. Its goal is to force these works into private commercial US registries as a condition of protecting copyrights.
Coerced registration violates international copyright law and copyright-related treaties.
IN SOLIDARITY * SOLIDARIDAD
This one is posted under a Creative Commons License, so you can pass the word by passing the pic, if you choose.
Comments and faves
itadela (49 months ago | reply)
and from a card-designing, blogging friend
You know dear Adela I did not think that people were downloading my stuff...of course what trusting soul would think that!...but I put a new tracker on my site and OH YES...from all over the world they are snatching my art! At 56 this is just so disheartening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for the links...I called and voiced my concern, and I am going to be sending the letters out and will post them on my blogs....And if Claudine has a go to in Washington....I AM SO THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ARTIST OF THE WORLD UNITE!!!!
Our creativity is for sharing...not for stealing!!
with_regards (49 months ago | reply)
There is no way to track if someone downloads your photos. What you are seeing is the number of visitors. Each person's browser downloads an image to each individual computer, but that doesn't mean people are saving them.
I agree that this legislations sounds like very bad news for professionals and creative people. I'm not sure I understand it completely.
itadela (49 months ago | reply)
An "Orphaned Work" is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration. In the same way that an orphaned child loses the protection of his or her parents, your creative work can become an orphan for others to use without your permission.
Under current copyright laws, you own the rights to your works as soon as you create them.
Period.
You don't have to do anything else to make them legally "yours".
Nobody else can use them in any way without your agreement/permission.
If someone does, you can make them stop and pay you $s. If you've registered your work with the government's copyright office, you can also sue any unauthorized user for "damages".
If the new proposed legislation is passed, just making something will allow others to use any of your images as they choose,without paying you a penny, unless you've signed it and registered that image with a commercial, non-government company.
The only people who benefit from this are those who want to make use of our creative works without paying for them and large companies who will run the new private copyright registries.
fotok1952 added this photo to his favorites. (49 months ago)
BlaiseAllen (49 months ago | reply)
Thank you Adela, I signed all the petitions last week when another friend notified me of the act. Hope others will follow suit. This is much more important to us than if Flickr has video...and look at the rukus that caused!
nal from miami added this photo to her favorites. (49 months ago)
nal from miami (49 months ago | reply)
Thank you for the information. I have signed the petition and will get friends to do so.
Jennifer Esperanza (49 months ago | reply)
This is not an orphan work
FIGHT ON PHOTOGRAPHERS!
Denise ~*~ added this photo to her favorites. (49 months ago)
Denise ~*~ (49 months ago | reply)
Thank you for sharing such insightful AND useful information!
Katie Cancinos added this photo to her favorites. (48 months ago)
Katie Cancinos (48 months ago | reply)
gooooooood idea!!
jonsearlesphoto added this photo to their favorites. (45 months ago)
ling_amelie (44 months ago | reply)
I would totally support this!!!
klevo! added this photo to his favorites. (42 months ago)
Caveman Chuck Coker (41 months ago | reply)
This bill never became law. This bill was proposed in a previous session of Congress. Sessions of Congress last two years, and at the end of each session all proposed bills and resolutions that haven't passed are cleared from the books. Members often reintroduce bills that did not come up for debate under a new number in the next session.
See www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2 913
I found this in the group "Politics in Action"
itadela (41 months ago | reply)
Right you are, Caveman.
None the less, I think I'll keep the pic in my stream, ready for when the current congress wants to divert our attention from the other stuff it's not dealing with.
Caveman Chuck Coker (41 months ago | reply)
I forgot to mention that this is a great image. I didn't mean to just show up, leave a news report, and vanish again.
Thanks for posting this. We need to keep on top of what's going on in Washington and other places.
Seen on your photo stream.
itadela (41 months ago | reply)
Thanks, Caveman.
Turning peoples' eyes to the shenanigans of the slimes throughout the world, is a goodly part of what I think of as my "job" as a picture-maker.
Anthony Citrano (41 months ago | reply)
Another great way to fight this is to complain to flickR for stripping your licensing information out of images. I found your image tonight (and used it!) when writing this article:
flickr stripping exif data.
So, it seems to me flickR is recklessly contributing to the problem.
Walks Across (39 months ago | reply)
welcome back my friend. You've been gone too long!
See you on Tues.
serena robert (6 months ago | reply)
This photo have touched my heart.
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