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Most visual Artists that I know are deeply concerned about this bill resurfacing. Thanks for keeping us up to date. Great article!!
It seems to me that it would be a lot easier to create an 'orphaned works registry' than try to register or reregister everything that is copyrighted....
Could any work be affected, yes, but one would think that any reasonable search would involve putting a quote into Google. That would be enough to locate most modern text works.
Still, I do prefer Prof. Lessig's ideas on the bill to the one that was presented. It seems to address the problem better and saves copyright holders a great deal of headache...
"At the very least, we have to give the USCO and our Congress credit for not simply bowing down before big copyright holders and for addressing a real issue, albeit in a very imperfect way."
The USCO and our Congress are bowing down before BIG corporate giants Google and Corbis (owned by Bill Gates of Microsoft). They are the ones with the power here.
Artists- often the rightsholders- are the little guys in this matter who are being brushed under the carpet.
According to a recent NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/arts/12nea.ht...
"In 2005 nearly two million Americans said their primary employment was in jobs that the census defines as artists’ occupations — including architects, interior designers and window dressers. Their combined income was about $70 billion, a median of $34,800 each."...
"Overall, the median income that artists reported in 2005 was $34,800 — $42,000 for men and $27,300 for women. The median income of the 55 percent of artists who said they had worked full-time for a full year was $45,200."...
"They are more highly educated but earn less than other professionals with the same level of schooling. They are likelier to be self-employed (about one in three and growing) and less likely to work full-time, year-round."...
"About 13 percent of people who say their primary occupation is artist also hold a second job — about twice the rate that other people in the labor force work two jobs."
Artists are not unionized or organized in any way. We are the "David" in this David vs. Goliath story.
Not only would the Orphan Works Act be too costly in time and money for small businesses to futilely attempt to protect their works in the visual databases but there should be no infringement safe harbor for nonprofits. Nonprofits are a $2 trillion industry in the US. If they were a country, they'd have the seventh largest economy in the world.
I am a medical illustrator. I take the complicated and technical subjects of science and medicine and translate them into visualizations that communicate these concepts in ways people can easily understand. Nonprofits are our clients. If enacted, the Orphan Works Act would devastate my profession and have a grave trickle down impact on the future of American healthcare, patient education and the development of breakthroughs in science and technology.
These acts will devastate the livelihoods of ORIGINAL content creators, collapsing the US's hopes as a future world leader in intellectual property growth.
Thank you for posting my opinions.
I agree that there are some big corporate giants that might "win" but there are others that will lose including those in the mainstream media. The orphan works problem is a very real one and was caused by the ever-extending copyright term. The problem has to be solved or else the term "public domain" is effectively meaningless. I do not like this solution, I think it is the wrong answer to a very real problem, but a solution is going to have to be found and many are pushing for a sharp reduction in the term for copyright.
With organizations such as the American Society of Media Photographers supporting this bill, it seems like that it will pass and that, if it doesn't an even worse one could later.
While I don't agree with that logic either, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on how to resolve the orphan works issue. I'm open to new ideas on this topic and am genuinely interested to hear how you would propose it be resolved. Would you prefer a shortened copyright term to the current bill?
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Thank you for your time.
Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for taking the time to consider my perspective (and that of thousands of rightsholders).
I am not sure who you are referring to in the "mainstream media" or how they will "lose".
Rightsholders take no issue with certified archives, libraries and museums (the ones that hold dusty old books, prints, sculptures, photos, etc. that have been vetted in their collection and not procured by the black market) to make works available for public display for the purpose of cultural heritage preservation.
Sending a clear message to the US, on June 4, 2008, members of the European Union signed a Memorandum of Understanding (basically a law, for all intents and purposes) that is a true Orphan Works legislation.
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activit...
"It will help cultural institutions to digitise books, films and music whose authors are unknown, making them available to the public online."
The bills before Congress are a bait and switch. They claim to be helping dusty, old, esteemed places- you know, the ones with the tall, white pillars- but what they really do is crack open the genie's bottle so those who've already snapped up the domain names for orphan works and vacuumed the internet for every image that every existed there can package it up and make a buck.
Artists' rights groups that I am associated with have been working on suggested amendments though they are not publicly disclosed at this time. Once they are made public, I would be happy to share that with your readers.
There is no impetus to rush a massive piece of copyright reform stealthily through Congress. This must be slowed down and carefully studied. The Copyright Office never performed a market impact study on those who manage their copyrights. What about the victims of Katrina? Many will never be able to participate in the registries- they have lost their works, their studios, their homes and sadly, many lost their lives. Many victims are unlocatable. Is that any reason to victimize them all over again?
People in Congress are taking note!
It is not inevitable that this bill will pass this session. Rightsholders are making an impact and garnering support for our views. You are right though, that this problem is not going away. The giant corporations (the digital libraries, archives and museums of the 21st century) want to get us pesky copyright holders out of the way so they can digitize our collections (if they haven't already) and offer them up for a buck.
I hope I have shed some more light on the hidden problems that were crafted into The [Shawn Bentley] Orphan Works Act of 2008.
I highly recommend you
1. Read the bills and the archives at
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org
2. Sign the petition "A Million People Against the Orphan Works Bill"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Stop2913/petition...
3. Call the capitol hill switchboard at (202) 224-3121
tell your members of Congress why you oppose the bills as written
4. Personalize and send faxes and emails to your members of Congress
the best letters are at: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/
We CAN make a difference against huge corporations spending countless dollars on this matter. The politicians will listen if enough constituents make some noise. So, please, I urge you all to act now.
Best regards,
Dena Matthews
There is a need for a version of the orphan works bill and Google among others are big supporters of the proposal. However everyone agrees they are going too far in their demands.
They aren't listening to the creators objections and the extent of the bill being proposed plus Googles recent grabbing of things that are not theirs (tied down), makes me think that we might be partly to blame again. By using their search engine we are giving them power.
So for the hell of it, if you are using Firefox as a browser, you can delete Google as a search engine (which will be noticed). It's like voting.
Bing is owned by Microsoft who are also pushing the bill through. There are a list of search engines that you can install listed here:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:4/cat:all?sort=name|leo://plh/https%3A*3*3addons%2Emozilla%2Eorg*3en-US*3firefox*3browse*3type%3A4*3cat%3Aall%3Fsort%3Dname/AW N5?_t=tracking_disc ]
It's possible to delete both Google and Bing from your search engine selection which would definitely get google etc, to sit up and pay attention.
Goodsearch is a nice alternative
http://www.goodsearch.com/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/...
This is a passively dynamic way of sending a message. It doesn't cost anything, the search engines are easy to install and a change is as good as a rest. I've been using Good search for a week and it's fine.
Cheers
Tom
Feel free to pass this on.
There is a need for a version of the orphan works bill and Google among others are big supporters of the proposal. However everyone agrees they are going too far in their demands.
They aren't listening to the creators objections and the extent of the bill being proposed plus Googles recent grabbing of things that are not theirs (tied down), makes me think that we might be partly to blame again. By using their search engine we are giving them power.
So for the hell of it, if you are using Firefox as a browser, you can delete Google as a search engine (which will be noticed). It's like voting.
Bing is owned by Microsoft who are also pushing the bill through. There are a list of search engines that you can install listed here:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:4/cat:all?sort=name|leo://plh/https%3A*3*3addons%2Emozilla%2Eorg*3en-US*3firefox*3browse*3type%3A4*3cat%3Aall%3Fsort%3Dname/AW N5?_t=tracking_disc ]
It's possible to delete both Google and Bing from your search engine selection which would definitely get google etc, to sit up and pay attention.
Goodsearch is a nice alternative
http://www.goodsearch.com/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/...
This is a passively dynamic way of sending a message. It doesn't cost anything, the search engines are easy to install and a change is as good as a rest. I've been using Good search for a week and it's fine.
Cheers
Tom
Feel free to pass this on.