Artists Against Orphan Works Bill

Small step!!

2011-11-28T21:46:00.001-08:00

ONE SMALL STEP FOR ARTISTS

At last it may be possible for some illustrators to start receiving reprographic royalties. The Illustrators' Partnership has been pressing this issue for several years.

Last April we announced that the New York State Supreme Court, New York County, had

dismissed all claims in a million dollar lawsuit brought by the Graphic Artists Guild (GAG) against the Illustrators' Partnership and five named individuals.

Regarding a key statement at issue in the lawsuit: that GAG had taken over one and a half million dollars of illustrators' royalties "surreptitiously," the judge wrote:

"The plaintiff Guild has conceded that it received foreign reproductive royalties

and that it does not distribute any of the money to artists."

Therefore we were pleased to learn last week that a list of illustrators, designers and photographers has been made public who may now claim their reprographic fees.

The names on the list range from some of the best known artists in our field to many whose identity we can't be sure of. We've already contacted our own members to alert them. Now we urge any artist who has ever done published work to follow the instructions below to see if your name is on the list and if so, to learn what you'll have to do to claim your royalties.

The royalties involved are title-specific fees. That means it's money derived from the foreign licensing of books or other publications where a single author can be identified by the foreign collecting societies that monitor usage and collect usage fees. The sums owed to any individual may not be large. Still, we believe that paying artists what they're due constitutes both an important principle and establishes a precedent for retaining our rights in the digital era.

Returning these title-specific royalties to artists is a start. Yet it still leaves open the far larger question of non-title specific royalties. These are collective fees derived from work that appears in magazines, newspapers, annual reports and other collective works.

Collective fees can be returned to artists only by a collecting society properly chartered to receive funds and make equitable distributions to rightsholders. In the US, 12 illustrators organizations have come together for this purpose. We'll have more to say about that shortly.

In the meantime, here's how you can see if you have money currently waiting for you and what you'll need to do to receive it:

Your name may be posted here:

http://www.authorscoalition.org/individual_author_distributions/index.html

(Click on the box labeled LIST OF AUTHORS.)

1) Download and fill out the ACA Collection and Claim Form PDF here:

http://www.authorscoalition.org/individual_author_distributions/ACA_Collection_Claim_Form.pdf

2) Download and fill out the W-9 Form PDF here:

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/fw9.pdf

3) Fax them to Authors Coalition at 313-882-3047, or mail to:

Authors Coalition of America

IAD

280 Moross Road

Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236

For the record, the Illustrators' Partnership is not associated with the Authors Coalition of America.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner
on behalf of the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

Recipients may post or email this message in its entirety to any interested party.
Link: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2011/11/money-for-artists.html

2011-08-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

Art4Love Copyright Infringement Scandal: Chad Love-Lieberman - Art Scam King? by Brian Sherwin

Law Suit Dropped

2011-04-27T23:09:00.001-07:00

GRAPHIC ARTISTS GUILD LAWSUIT DISMISSED
Last week the New York State Supreme Court, New York County, dismissed all claims in a million dollar lawsuit brought by the Graphic Artists Guild (GAG) against the Illustrators' Partnership of America (IPA) and five named individuals.

In the lawsuit, GAG asserted claims for defamation and interference with contractual relations, alleging that IPA had interfered with a "business relationship" GAG had entered into that enabled GAG to collect orphaned reprographic royalties derived from the licensing of illustrators' work. GAG alleged that efforts by IPA to create a collecting society to return lost royalties to artists "interfered" with GAG's "business" of appropriating these orphaned fees.

In her decision, Judge Debra James ruled that statements made by the Illustrators' Partnership and the other defendants were true; that true statements cannot be defamatory; that illustrators have a "common interest" in orphaned income; and that a "common-interest privilege" may arise from both a right and a duty to convey relevant information, however contentious, to others who share that interest or duty.

Regarding a key statement at issue in the lawsuit: that GAG had taken over one and a half million dollars of illustrators' royalties "surreptitiously," the judge wrote:

"Inasmuch as the statement [by IPA] was true, [GAG]'s claim cannot rest on allegations of a reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. Truthful and accurate statements do not give rise to defamation liability concerns." (Emphasis added.)

And she noted:

"The plaintiff Guild has conceded that it received foreign reproductive royalties and that it does not distribute any of the money to artists."

Labor Department filings provided as evidence to the court document that between 2000 and 2007, GAG collected at least $1,581,667 in illustrators' reprographic royalties. GAG admitted to having collected similar royalties since 1996. GAG's officers have repeatedly refused to disclose how much money their organization has received to date or how the money has been spent.

DUTY AND COMMON INTEREST
The judge concluded that this situation justified an assertion of common interest by IPA. This means that "the party communicating [relevant information] has an interest or has a duty" to convey that information truthfully to others "having a corresponding interest or duty":

"The duty need not be a legal one, but only a moral or social duty. The parties need only have such a relation to each other as would support a reasonable ground for supposing an innocent motive for imparting the information. Here the plaintiff Guild's factual allegations demonstrate that the defendants' statements were both true, and fall within the parameters of the common-interest privilege." (Emphasis added.)

We hope this decision will end the two and a half years of litigation during which GAG pursued its claims against IPA and artists Brad Holland, Cynthia Turner and Ken Dubrowski of IPA, as well as attorney Bruce Lehman, former Commissioner of the US Patent Office and Terry Brown, Director Emeritus of the Society of Illustrators.

All defendants were participants in a public presentation sponsored February 21, 2008 by 12 illustrators organizations. The presentation was disrupted by GAG's officers and their attorney. A videotape of the event proves that statements which GAG alleged to be defamatory were made only in response to GAG's intervention, and that until that time, no speakers had mentioned GAG or GAG's longstanding appropriation of illustrators' royalties.

Last year, on January 12, 2010, Judge James issued a prior ruling dismissing nearly all of GAG's causes of action. This left only a claim asserted by GAG against Brad Holland. But in a response filed with the court February 4, 2010, attorney Jason Casero, serving as counsel for IPA, pointed out that GAG's remaining claim rested on an allegedly defamatory statement that Holland never made. When confronted with evidence, GAG was forced to admit it had "inadvertently attributed" the statement to Holland.

GAG subsequently filed new motions in an effort to revive its claims against IPA and the other defendants. Last summer the judge consolidated GAG's multiple motions and on April 18, 2011, she dismissed all ten causes of action against IPA and all the defendants.

REPROGRAPHIC RIGHTS AND ORPHAN WORKS
GAG served the lawsuit on IPA October 10, 2008, seven days after Congress failed to pass the Orphan Works Act of 2008. The Illustrators' Partnership and 84 other creators' organizations opposed that legislation. GAG had lobbied for passage of the House version of the Orphan Works bill. Mandatory lobbying disclosures document that GAG spent nearly $200,000 in Orphan Works lobbying fees.

In our opinion, the issues behind the lawsuit are greater than whether an organization should be allowed to benefit from the millions of dollars that, collectively, illustrators are losing. We believe the reprographic rights issue is linked to both orphan works legislation and the Google Book Settlement, which Federal Judge Denny Chin dismissed on March 22, 2011.

Each of these developments involves an effort by third parties to define artists' work and/or royalties as orphaned property, and to assert the right, in the name of the public interest or class representation, to exploit that work commercially or to appropriate the royalties for use at their sole discretion. So far, judges have affirmed that copyright is an individual, not a collective right, and that unless one explicitly transfers that right, no business or organization can automatically acquire it by invoking an orphaned property premise. Now the challenge for artists will be to see that Congress does not pass legislation to permit what the courts have so far denied.

We'll have more to say about this issue in the future. For now we'd like to conclude by thanking our attorney Jason Casero, who provided us with a strong, incisive and heartfelt defense; his law firm, McDermott Will & Emery, which provided us with his services; the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of New York and its Director Elena Paul. We'd also like to thank Dan Vasconcellos, Richard Goldberg, and the over 700 artists and illustrators who in 2008 signed a petition asking GAG (unsuccessfully as it turned out) to drop the lawsuit; the support of so many colleagues was a great tonic at a low time. Finally we'd like to thank the representatives of the 12 organizations that comprise the American Society of Illustrators' Partnership (ASIP). ASIP is the coalition organization IPA incorporated in 2007 to act as a collecting society to return royalties to artists.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

Google thwarted by Courts, from Illustrator's Partnership

2011-03-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Court Rejects Google Book Settlement

3.23.2011

Yesterday, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin rejected the Book Rights Registry settlement between Google and the US Authors Guild. The $125 million commercial agreement would have rewarded both parties for the largest mass infringement of authors' copyrights in history. Instead, the judge ruled it a business deal "too far."

"A Reversal of Copyright Law" is what we called this agreement in our warning to illustrators September 29, 2009. Like the visual arts "databases" we opposed during the Orphan Works fight, we wrote:

"this agreement would allow both Google and a yet-to-be-created Book Rights Registry to commercially profit from an author's work whenever they say they can't locate the author.

"Both schemes would force authors to opt out of commercial operations that infringe their work or to 'protect' their work by opting-in to privately owned databases run by infringers. This Hobson's Choice for authors reverses the principle of copyright law."

Judge Chin held this to be the case. "A copyright owner's right to exclude others from using his property is fundamental and beyond dispute," he ruled. "[I]t is incongruous with the purpose of the copyright laws to place the onus on copyright owners to come forward to protect their rights when Google copied their works without first seeking their permission."

The judge also noted objections to the "Adequacy of Class Representation." In short, this holds that neither Google, nor any organizations claiming to represent authors, nor the university libraries that gave Google "permission" to digitize their holdings, own the copyrights to the works this agreement would have allowed them to exploit.

Therefore, they have no standing to broker deals based on claims that they represent the "class" of authors.

The judge held this to be the case even where organizations asserted the right to "expropriate" "orphaned" royalties belonging to rightsholders. Noting that "After ten years, unclaimed funds may be distributed to literary-based charities," the judge concluded:

"[A]t a minimum a fair question exists as to whether this Court or the Registry or the Fiduciary would be expropriating copyright interests belonging to authors who have not voluntarily transferred them. As Professor Nimmer has written: 'By its terms Section 201(e) is not limited to acts by governmental bodies and officials. It includes acts of seizure, etc., by any 'organization' as well.' 3 Melville B. Nimmer & David Nimmer, Nimmer on Copyright §10.04 (Rev. Ed. 2010) (footnote omitted)." [Page 31 of the judge's ruling, emphasis added.]

In rejecting the settlement, Judge Chin also echoed the US Justice Department's antitrust objections: The deal, he wrote, "would give Google a significant advantage over competitors, rewarding it for engaging in wholesale copying of copyrighted works without permission..." He suggested the settlement might win approval if it were revised to cover only those who opt into the agreement.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

Google thwarted by Courts

2011-03-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

Some good news to learn about the Google attempt to make a global library!

This day in history

2010-04-27T10:45:00.001-07:00

1667 Blind and impoverished John Milton sells the copyright of Paradise Lost for £10.

Seems to be happening to artists for a long time!!

White House Seeks Artists' Comments to Improve Copyright Protection

2010-03-18T21:59:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

White House Seeks Artists' Comments to Improve Copyright Protection

3.18.10

New Copyright Czar begins Joint Strategic Plan to Protect Intellectual Property
Victoria Espinel is the first U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), also known as the Copyright Czar. Congress created IPEC by an Act of Congress. Ms. Espinel serves within the Executive Office of the President to coordinate with all the federal agencies that fight the infringement of intellectual property.

Ms. Espinel and her team are specifically tasked with formulating and implementing a Joint Strategic Plan to help protect the ingenuity and creativity of Americans by improving the U.S. Government's protection of the rights of intellectual property owners.

Your input is requested.
The White House is inviting your public input and participation to shape an effective intellectual property enforcement strategy. Please respond with your written submissions regarding the costs to you, your business and the U.S. economy resulting from infringement of your intellectual property rights, both direct and indirect.

This will be a 2-part process.
The first is to gather public recommendations by March 24. IPEC will then gather your input on the formulated plan.

Please be precise.
Include your name, city, state, and what type of artist you are. Explain why copyright is critical to you as a commercial artist, how infringement affects you, and what the U.S. government can do to better protect the rights of American artists. If your submission is about your economic loss due to infringement of your copyrights you must clearly identify the methodology used to calculate your losses or otherwise validate your infringement and enforcement costs.

Your submission will be publicly posted.
For this reason, please do not include in your comments information of a confidential nature, such as sensitive personal information or proprietary information.

Confidential disclosures.
If you have confidential business information that would support your recommendation or that you believe would help the Government formulate an effective enforcement strategy, please let them know by contacting:
Thomas L. Stoll
Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator
(202) 395-1808

Deadline: Submissions must be received by Wednesday, March 24, 2010, at 5 p.m. EST.
Address: All submissions should be sent electronically via intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov

Additional Background Reading:
White House Blog
Federal Register Notice Request

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

The Digital Economy Bill : what's yours is ours

2010-03-05T04:34:00.000-08:00

The end game is now in sight. The Digital Economy Bill is now expected to become law within the next 6 weeks. It introduces orphan works usage rights, which - unless amended, which HMG says it will not - will allow the commercial use of any photograph whose author cannot be identified through a suitably negligent search. That is potentially about 90% of the photos on the internet.

Copyright in photos is essentially going to cease to exist, since there is no ineradicable way of associating ownership details short of plastering your name right across the image. Photographer's organisations have pressed hard for mandatory attribution to deter orphans being manufactured. Early in the consultation process the IPO accepted the irresistible logic that it was completely unreasonable to permit orphan use without a balancing requirement to not orphan photos in the first place. However, the IPO recognised with dismay that this would mean "taking on Rupert" (Murdoch).

Publishers have a long history of opposing our moral rights. They were responsible for the feeble and unenforceable moral rights clauses in the 1988 Act. They want their branding, not ours, and they want maximum freedom to exploit our IP at minimum cost and inconvenience.

The IPO avoided confrontation with Murdoch, who does have something of a rep for being a vital friend in an election year. The Bill contains no deterrent to the creation of orphans, no penalties for anonymising your work, no requirement for bylines. It is a luncheon voucher for industry hungry for free and cheap content.

So Flickr, Google Images, personal websites, all of it will become commercial publishers' photolibrary. A fee will have to be deposited with a collecting society in case the owner spots the usage. The author who discovers his work has been used as an orphan can then make a claim and receive a percentage of the peanuts, after the collecting society has had its share, and the government its share.

This is perhaps a slight improvement over earlier proposals, whereby HMG egregiously planned to keep all the fees itself.

Essentially, if photos were cars, so long as the numberplate is missing (or you can get rid of it and claim it was), you'll be able to legally TWOC and use it on payment of a fee to the Government.

The quaint notion that the author alone has prime and inalienable rights over his/her own work, must be able to restrict usage, negotiate a fee, prevent usage they consider immoral or distasteful, or assert their moral right to attribution, is about to pass into history.

This is the biggest change in UK copyright law in 150 years. It also punches holes through the Berne agreement, international copyright law and TRIPS.

It most certainly is not an issue that affects only pro's, who for the most part are doomed anyway. Simple economics of media evolution are driving commercial users toward free or very cheap content, sourced from readers and users, microstock, hobbyists, and we suspect that Government is using orphan works legislation as a means to oil the wheels of Britain's publishing industry. Cultural freedom, the worthy concerns of museums and galleries, are just a Trojan horse. If they were not, none of this chicanery would be necessary, a simple extension to fair dealing would have solved the orphans problem.

So it is amateurs who should worry most. Pro's tend to be careful about asserting copyright and being easy to find, because it's their livelihood. Amateurs just don't want to know about this dull legal stuff or spend hours embedding IPTC, even if they know what it is. They want to concentrate on the enjoyable bits of shooting and sharing their work, often via free services and untraceable nicknames. If work gets published without payment, they tend to feel flattered rather than robbed anyway. If they can claim a few quid from a collecting society they'll be chuffed. It is their photographs that will become easy targets for orphan claims, relieving commercial publishers of the tedious necessity of needing to ask permission when they can't easily find the owner. But the fact remains that photographers will have been serially robbed with government connivance.

Back door man

Most of this state-sponsored thieves' charter isn't even going through Parliament as primary legislation. The Digital Economy bill Section 42 sections 16a, 16b, 16c enable ad hoc regulation by Mandelson's office without further legislation. None of that will ever be voted on.

In fact what an "orphan work" is remains undefined in the Bill. Simlarly, what precisely will comprise an "adequate search", what level of fee will be required, how the fee will be divided between the revenant author and the collecting society, who will benefit from unclaimed fees, who the extended licensing societies will be and what rules they will have to follow, are all unspecified and unknown to supporters and opponents alike. As far as orphans and photographers are concerned, this is a deliberate shell of a bill whose real payload will not be made apparent until it is too late to do anything about it.

Remarkably, even though it simply isn't possible for them to know what they were voting for, only a handful of Lib-Dem and Tory Lords expressed concern during Monday's Lords debate.

This covert approach to major legislation did not escape the attention of the Lords Select Committee on the Constution, who wrote to Mandelson in December :

"The Committee's view is that this is inappropriate, and that "orphan work" should be defined in the Bill. Likewise the following matters are left for you as Secretary of State and are not settled in the Bill: the treatment of royalties, the deduction of administrative costs, the period for which sums must be held for the copyright owner, and the subsequent treatment of those sums. The Committee notes that regulations made under this section are subject only to negative resolution procedure; and that the provisions contain no express duty on you as Secretary of State to consult appropriate stakeholders....it would greatly assist the Committee if you could explain why you consider it to be constitutionally appropriate for what appear to be such wide-ranging and open-ended rule-making powers to be conferred on you as Secretary of State."

Mandelson replied that the need for flexibility in specifying what comprises an adequate search makes this difficult. That what is an orphan work will change according to evolving methods of determining its status. (An astonishing concept borrowed perhaps from quantum mechanics). He gives no clues what an adequate search may comprise because that too is subject to change. Therefore we have no clue what an orphan work may be, but rest assured the law needs to change to address the dire handicap that orphans present to creativity. Who can argue with that? But he does at least promise yet more IPO public consultation. In over 3 years of consultation with photographers' representative bodies, Gowers, Lammy, the IPO have proved deaf as a post, so this is not reassuring.

Nor have the answers been any clearer regarding the EC Human Rights implications of disposing of some unknown person's copyright. "No Articles are engaged by the provision itself as the provision only contains a power and has no immediate substantive effect" is a truly audacious Houdini-ism. But anyhow, according to Mandelson ECHR allows him to do anything he likes with other peoples' copyright so long as it is in the public interest, and so long as people can opt out of the licensing arrangements he undertakes - which appears to mean they forfeit collecting society fees. Can they sue for infringement? Sorry, don't know, nobody knows

Even if he can't tell the public or Parliament what he's going to do or how any of it will impact on us, or how the sums work, or even how much money government will rake off the deal with collecting societies, or even exactly what "opt out" means, he is at least sure all of it will be in the public interest. Mandelson has a long, long list of informal soothing assurances to live up to, but once the law is passed they may well be worthless. There is little point is reserving to oneself unaccountable Godlike powers of unlimited "flexibility" if one does not intend to use them. In the public interest, of course. That's not defined either.

Whatever next

Now that their Lordships have nodded through this masterpiece of double-blind opacity, it will return to the House of Lords for the report stage on 1st March, with none of our elected representatives being any the wiser when they vote, but reliably following party lines. The Government is determined to see the Digital Economy Bill passed without further amendment before the May 6th election date. A cynic might think that, having watched the fate of successive US orphan rights Bills and the international uproar among visual creators, the UK Government has been very clever indeed at closing down debate and circumventing democracy. Nobody can argue with what is still secret. Genius.

The ICO code : put that camera away, my face is private

Not content with abrogating photographers' copyright, another part of Government is now going some way to ban photography altogether in public places, for data protection reasons. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) proposed new code for personal information online has "commonsense" new rules that in effect will prohibit photography in public places where anyone who's in the photograph might be unhappy about being photographed. A photo, taken in public, is now deemed private data, y'see.

CCTV, full body scans at airports, no problem, but if an ordinary person takes a photo, this Kafkasesque notion of privacy in public will apply. Unless it's on film. You'd probably be OK taking photos of someone committing a criminal offence too, as ICO thinks this shouldn't be private information.

Mindful of the damage this would do to tourism and how much it would piss off Joe Public to be told he can't use his cameraphone in the street to make humiliating snaps of his drunk mates for Facebook (and quite possibly subsequent orphan use by Rupert Murdoch), ICO have decided that this lunacy shall only apply to pro photographers, a small enough constituency to castrate with impunity.

Of course ICO thinks all pro photography is deeply unpopular paparazzi harassment of our beloved celebrities so it is acting in a most principled manner for, you guessed, the public interest. Minor considerations like journalism, history, social documentary, freedom of expression - and even the simple logic that if you can eyeball it in public, it can't possibly be private - all are just collateral damage. At a stroke, ICO is redefining allowable photography to exclude all that contentious street stuff that has made the record of the last 150 years so insightful. Consensual falsehoods, celebrity promotion, ridiculous propaganda, marketing nonsense will all be fine, however.

"Consultation" has, in the now time-honoured manner, met with stonewall indifference. As far as ICO are concerned, there is not a problem. It simply means pro photographers must not take any photo that anyone in the picture may object to. They don't have to actually object, the photographer has to guess whether they might and do the responsible thing.

Almost always that will mean putting the camera away and going home. In the most CCTV-monitored and nannied country in the world, once the bossed-about public gets the idea that they have a right to not be photographed in public places they wil point blank refuse, just to assert the one tiny freedom left to them. At last they will no longer have to imagine privacy rights they don't have. The prejudice and suspicion against anyone with a big camera will be officially sanctioned. Photographers will not only be potential paedophiles and terrorists, but identity-thieving personal data pirates too.

Of course, we already have police and PCSO's deploying S44 TA2000 for the purpose of interdicting photography in public places. That has admittedly been ruled illegal under ECHR by the European Court in Strasbourg, but HMG assure that is in the public interest too and police say it is a vital part of the fight against terrorism, so the law lives on.

All told, at this rate it will soon be easier to photograph in North Korea than UK.

[EDIT:

Just to be entirely clear, the above article deals with two separate issues emanating from two different government departments.

1. Digital Economy Bill

We urge you to write to your MP about the orphan licensing provisions of the Digital Economy Bill. Pressure on our elected representatives is now the only way to stop the Bill, and time is short.

It is better to write your own unique letter because MP's take less notice of organised campaigns than individual constituents, but if it helps a template letter is available here. Word (.doc), RTF (.rtf) and plain text (.txt) versions may be downloaded from the bottom of that page. Adapt it, change it, write something entirely different, but write!

If you can, don't just email. A proper letter on paper sent through the post, or even a fax will command a great deal more attention. Recorded delivery is best of all - they might think it's from the Fees Office ;-)

How to find your MP's name and contact details is described here.

2. ICO Personal Information Online consultation

In response to inquiries correctly noting that the ICO code does not explicitly mention photography please read the comment below : "ICO and Photography in Public places : a clarification"

The ICO consultation is ongoing and concludes on 5 March. Please email consultations@ico.gsi.gov.uk seeking urgent clarification regarding their interpretation of data protection law regarding photography in public places.

- last edited 19 Feb 2010]

Proper link here!

Oslo, Norway

2009-10-22T06:35:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Authors Groups Meet in Oslo

10.22.09

OSLO NORWAY Over 60 authors organizations met here this week to discuss strategies for defending authors' rights in the digitized world. Their call to action is reminiscent of the grassroots coalition that came together in the US last year to oppose the Orphan Works bill. In addition to concerns over anti-copyright legislation, authors around the world, including visual artists, face threats from piracy, unauthorized usage, all-rights contracts and, in the US, the loss and/or dissipation of their reprographic royalties.

The Oslo meeting was held concurrent with the anniversary of the founding of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO). IFRRO was born in Oslo 25 years ago. In the last quarter century, it has grown to 190 members and associate members, of which the Illustrators' Partnership is one.

IFRRO was founded by a small group of visionaries who believed that there was a need for an international organization of Reprographic Rights Organizations (RROs). RROs are collecting societies that monitor and clear rights to authors' creations in collective works such as books, magazines, etc. They grant rights, as mandated by authors, collect fees and return royalties to illustrators, artists, writers and others.

Collecting societies are a new concept to most American illustrators. They exist in countries around the world, but currently, there are none for illustrators in the US. Two years ago, the Illustrators' Partnership brought together 12 prominent visual arts organizations. These groups have incorporated as the American Society of Illustrators Partnership (ASIP).

ASIP, which has been chartered as a collecting society, hopes to begin the long-overdue process of bringing accountability to illustrators' reprographic rights. The 12 founding groups of ASIP also formed the nucleus of the 85 organizations that opposed the Orphan Works bill. In future reports, we'll tell you more about what illustrators can do individually to help us build this formal coalition into a functioning society.

Another Anniversary: The 1999 Santa Fe Conference
The meeting of authors this week in Oslo recalls another anniversary closer to home: the first Illustrators Conference, which opened 10 years ago this week in Santa Fe.

The Santa Fe Conference was a grassroots event founded by 8 artists and reps who believed that illustrators should not accept a slow evolution toward the dissolution of their rights. The conference led to the creation of the Illustrators' Partnership - founded by 3 of the same artists- to act on the initiatives first raised at that pioneering event.

So now, as authors worldwide issue a call for cooperative action, we're pleased to note that the spirit of Santa Fe, invoked by illustrators a decade ago, is still alive and well in the US. It's the spirit that guided artists in Washington last year and with luck, it may yet swell and aid in the preservation of copyright law, which is the legal means by which the distinctive expressions of individuals are themselves preserved.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

Compelling Argument

2009-10-02T21:14:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part III

10.2.09

Compelling Arguments

On September 10, 2009, Marybeth Peters, Register of the US Copyright Office, testified before Congress in opposition to the Google Book Search Settlement. Her arguments on behalf of creators rights are compelling and we support them. However, we note with some irony that they are nearly identical to the arguments we made in opposing the Orphan Works bill last year. We don't know what conclusions to draw from this fact, but we think it's fair to draw attention to it.

We've picked several examples below and matched them with quotes from our own writings and testimony. In every case, the emphasis is ours.

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The [Google] settlement is not merely a compromise of existing claims, or an agreement to compensate past copying and snippet display. Rather, it could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: The bill's sponsors say it's merely a small adjustment to copyright law. In fact...its provisions have been drafted so broadly it will orphan the work of working artists. Its consequences will be far reaching, long lasting, perhaps irreversible and will strike at the heart of art itself."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[The Book Rights Registry] is likely to have the unfortunate effect of creating a false database of orphan works, because in practice any work that is not claimed will be deemed an orphan."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "As clients come to rely on these [visual arts] registries as one-stop shopping centers for rights clearance, any works not found in the registries could be infringed as orphans."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Compulsory licenses... are scrutinized very strictly because by their nature they impinge upon the exclusive rights of copyright holders...By its nature, a compulsory license 'is a limited exception to the copyright holder's exclusive right . . . As such, it must be construed narrowly.'"

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[The Orphan Works bill] radically abridges the fundamental principal of exclusive rights granted to creators under the copyright law, and creates a sweeping compulsory license permitting large scale unauthorized use of not only older works, the provenance of which may be difficult to determine, but also of the valuable contemporary works that are the economic life blood of those in our profession."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Compulsory licenses are generally adopted by Congress only reluctantly, in the face of a marketplace failure."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The Copyright Office only received about 215 relevant letters to their Orphan Works Study. From this they deduced a claim of widespread market failure in commercial markets..." " But the Copyright Office studied the specific subject of orphaned work. They did not inquire about the workings of commercial markets and there is no evidence in their report that business clients are unable to find the living authors they wish to work with. No evidence whatsoever."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "In summary, the out-of-print default rules would allow Google to operate under reverse principles of copyright law..."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[The Orphan Works bill] creates the public's right to use private property as a default position, available to anyone whenever the property owner fails to make himself sufficiently available." "[I]ts logic reverses copyright law."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "In essence, the proposed settlement would give Google a license to infringe first and ask questions later..."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "Since orphan works transactions would occur only after infringement, the rights holder would have no leverage to bargain for more than the infringer is willing or able to pay."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[C]opyright law has always left it to the copyright owner to determine whether and how an out-of-print work should be exploited."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "Under copyright law, no author can be compelled to publish his or her work. So by what right of eminent domain can Congress give strangers the right to publish our work without our knowledge, consent or payment?"

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The broad scope of the out-of-print provisions and the large class of copyright owners they would affect will dramatically impinge on the exclusive rights of authors, publishers, their heirs and successors."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The fundamental problem with the Orphan Works Act is that it's been drafted so broadly its use cannot be confined to real orphaned work situations." "To redefine an orphaned work as "a work by an unlocatable author" is to radically re-define the ownership of private property...Since everybody can be hard for somebody to find, this voids a rights holder's exclusive right to his or her own property."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Some foreign governments have raised questions about the compatibility of the proposed settlement with Article 5 of the Berne convention, which requires that copyright be made available to foreign authors on a no less favorable basis than to domestic authors, and that the "enjoyment and exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[P]utting pressure on creators to subsidize the creation of privately-owned registries violates the intent of international copyright law, specifically Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention: "The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The ability of copyright owners and technology companies to share advertising revenue and other potential income streams is a worthy and symbiotic business goal that makes a lot of sense when the terms are mutually determined. And the increased abilities of libraries to offer on-line access to books and other copyrighted works is a development that is both necessary and possible in the digital age. However, none of these possibilities should require Google to have immediate, unfettered, and risk-free access to the copyrighted works of other people. They are not a reason to throw out fundamental copyright principles; they are a pretext to do so."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The internet has created a culture of appropriation; and immediate global access to artistic works has facilitated piracy, unintentional infringement and plagiary. But instant and unrestricted access to work should not be construed as a necessity just because technology has made it a possibility. That an artist's work now can be instantly transmitted around the world without the artist's permission or control does not justify a user's 'right' to take the work."

* * * * *

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[T]he settlement would inappropriately interfere with the on-going efforts of Congress to enact orphan works legislation in a manner that takes into account the concerns of all stakeholders as well as the United States' international obligations."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "This bill has been drafted behind closed doors, without a needs-assessment study, an economic impact analysis, or an evaluation of how the public would be affected by this transfer of private property from individuals to giant commercial databases...For artists, the most troubling part has been our near-total exclusion from the legislative process."

"On July 11th [2008], on behalf of all those who oppose this bill, [we] submitted Amendments to the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. Those Amendments would make this bill a true orphan works bill. The Amendments have never been considered...This is no way to re-write U.S. copyright law."

Q.E.D.

The Register's full testimony from September 10, 2009 can be found here.
Our comments have been excerpted from various articles posted in 2008 on the IPA Orphan Works blog.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog

Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

Reverse in Copyright Laws

2009-09-29T22:37:00.000-07:00

ROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part II

9.29.09

A Reversal of Copyright Law

Last Friday we summarized the basic details of the Google Book Search Settlement. Like the visual arts "databases" we opposed last year, this agreement would allow both Google and a yet-to-be-created Book Rights Registry to commercially profit from an author's work whenever they say they can't locate the author.

Both schemes would force authors to opt out of commercial operations that infringe their work - or to "protect" their work by opting-in to privately owned databases run by infringers. This Hobson's Choice for authors reverses the principle of copyright law.

The by-product of the Google settlement (again like the Orphan Works bill) would be to establish public access to private property as the default position in copyright law. In other words, it presumes:

a.) that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right,
b.) that it's your legal obligation to make your work available, and
c.) that if you fail to do so, you forfeit your exclusive right to control access to your work.

If you're an author and you wish to keep the book you write from becoming a potential orphan, you'd therefore have to register it with the Book Rights Registry run by the parties that settled with Google (and who will receive an award of $30 million for cutting themselves in).

Advocates of the deal try to justify it by saying it will make more books available to more people than at any other time in history - a claim that's no doubt true - but therefore they say, as Andrew Albanese writes in Publishers Weekly, "the massive public good of the deal far outweigh[s] the individual greivances [sic] of rightsholders."

Yet it's in this very argument that the danger lies.

Once the Copy Left has established a legal precedent that the property rights of authors can be subordinated to the assertion of public interest, they can build on that principle to enact further statute and case laws to benefit commercial interests. To do this, they'll have to chip away further at the inherent property rights of individuals.

Orphan Works: "Half a Loaf"
An example of the agenda that underlies both the Google book search settlement and the Orphan Works bill came in May, 2008, at a time when the Orphan Works bill looked to be a shoo-in by early summer. Anticipating a quick mopping up operation, the bill's advocates were high-fiving one another. But as James V. DeLong of the Convergence Law Institute reminded them, there was still much work ahead.

Calling the Orphan Works bill just "half a loaf," he hinted at what it would take to permit commercial interests to take the whole loaf:

"These possibly-orphan, sort-of-orphan, and gray literature works simply cannot be made available if the digitizers are required to make one-by-one judgments and seek permission before copying. If they are to be retrieved in useful form, then sooner or later Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and some others must be permitted to digitize on a massive scale."

Of course he acknowledged that the new reverse copyright law should not deprive intellectual property owners of their "legitimate rights." But he reaffirmed the Copy Left's fundamental premise that intellectual property owners should not be entitled to legitimate rights except in situations where they've registered their works:

"At some point, some kind of grand grandfathering proceeding will probably be required, a window in which holders of existing rights must reaffirm them or lose them." (Italics added)

Again, this is the same premise we see at work in the Google book settlement. As Lynn Chu, a principal at Writers Representatives LLC, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009:

"Under the settlement, every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote -- and every excerpt permission ever granted to others -- at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs. This is a massive burden on everyone in the book industry, making us all, in effect, Google's data-entry slaves. Indeed, in most cases such information about every permission ever granted is unlocatable. It opens a Pandora's box of disputes and mistaken claims about who actually owns what." (Italics added)

This is identical to our warning last year about the Orphan Works bill:

"[The Orphan Works bill] would force artists either to entrust their entire life's work to privately owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement. It would let giant image banks access our commercial inventory and metadata - and enter our commercial markets as clearinghouses to compete with us for our own clients. I can think of no other field where small business owners can be pressured to supply potential competitors with their content, business data and client contact information." - Brad Holland, Small Business Administration Roundtable, August 8, 2008

The War on Authors
Both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill have their intellectual rationale in the war on authors that began decades ago in the obscure theories of Postmodern literary critics. Their fundamental premise is that all creativity is communal and that authors are only the agents through which the community creates. This has led a handful of activist legal scholars to demand changes in the law requiring artists, writers and others to affirm and reaffirm the rights to use their own work by, in effect, licensing it from the public "commons."

This argument, Marxist in its origins, has found its unlikely champion in those large commercial Internet interests that hope to build Information Age empires supplying businesses and the public with creative "content." By defining millions of works as orphans on the premise that some might be, both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill would allow these opportunists to profit by harvesting the work of others, providing their databases with content they could never afford to create themselves nor license from authors.

Next: Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement /Part III: Compelling Arguments
The Register of the US Copyright Office has condemned the Google settlement in terms nearly identical to our condemnation last year of the Orphan Works bill. In Part III, we'll examine those similarities to see the patterns that are emerging from this insidious effort to change copyright law.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog

Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

Google Settlement

2009-09-24T23:27:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part I

9.25.09

We've been asked for news about the Orphan Works bill. Last June Intellectual Property Watch warned that it would be back during the summer. And on June 11th, Senator Orrin Hatch confirmed his intent to reintroduce the bill. We immediately put out a notice to artists. But summer's over and we've had no further news. So far, so good.

Of course Congress has had other priorities: the ongoing financial mess, the health care debate and - on the copyright front - the Google book search controversy. For those who haven't followed the news about this Google assault on copyright, we'll try to summarize it.

The World's Largest Library (Or is it Bookstore?)
In 2004, Google announced its intent to digitize all of the world's 80-100 million books - and to make most of them commercially available as orphaned works. The plan has been controversial since its inception.

Google began with the cooperation of several major libraries. The libraries gave Google access to their holdings. The problem is that libraries are libraries; they don't own the copyrights to the books they hold. In short, they gave Google the rights to other people's work. So far, Google has scanned over 10 million books.

In 2004, the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers sued Google for copyright infringement. Last October the parties settled. The resulting agreement is 141 pages long, with 15 appendices of 179 pages. The implications for copyright holders are not clear, but what the litigants would get is breathtaking. As Lynn Chu, a principal at Writers Representatives LLC, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009:

"[I]f approved by the federal court, [it would] permit Google to post out-of-print books for reading, sales, institutional licensing, ad sales, and other publishing exploitations, by Google, online. The settlement gives the class-action attorneys $30 million; a new, quasi-judicial bureaucracy called the Book Rights Registry $35 million...and $45 million for owners infringed up to now -- about $60 a title." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123819841868261921.html

Google would keep just over a third of the profits generated by selling these books online. The rest would go to the Book Rights Registry run by publishers' and authors' representatives. In other words, 63% would go to the parties that sued Google. In theory, the Registry would attempt to locate the authors of orphaned works and pay them royalties. But as Ms. Chu points out, the parties that sued Google - and would therefore benefit from Google's infringement - have themselves traded away other people's rights in the bargain:

"No one elected these 'class representatives' to represent America's tens of thousands of authors and publishers to convey their digital rights to Google. Nor are the interests of this so-called class identical."

The US Department of Justice apparently agrees. Last Friday, it filed an objection to the settlement and advised the court to reject the settlement as written. On page 9 of their brief, the DOJ attorneys write:

"The structure of the Proposed Settlement itself, therefore, pits the interests of one part of the class (known rightsholders) against the interests of another part of the class (orphan works rightsholders). Google's commercial use of orphan works will generate revenues, which will be deposited with the Registry. Any unclaimed revenues, however, will inure to the benefit of the Registry and its registered rightsholders. Thus, the Registry and its registered rightsholders will benefit at the expense of every rightsholder who fails to come forward to claim profits from Google's commercial use of his or her work...

"The greater the economic exploitation of the works of unknown rightsholders by Google and the Registry, the stronger the incentive for known rightsholders to retain the unclaimed revenues for themselves." [Emphasis added]

The Department of Justice also warns that the settlement fails to comply with copyright, antitrust laws and the rules of class action litigation. http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/September/09-opa-1001.html

The US federal court was scheduled to hold a fairness hearing October 7. But over 400 objections from around the world have been filed by rightsholders, competitors to Google and (in addition to the US government) the governments of France and Germany. Yesterday we received news that the fairness hearing has been delayed.

The Google settlement has also been condemned by Marybeth Peters, Register of the US Copyright Office. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee last Wednesday, Ms. Peters stated that it would allow Google to "operate under reverse principles of copyright law," adding "it could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come." http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat091009.html

We haven't had much to say about this agreement because, with the notable exception of childrens' book illustrations (which for purposes of the settlement are considered part of the text) the agreement doesn't include visual art. Yet like the Orphan Works bill itself, the Google Book Settlement would be a radical change to copyright law.

Tomorrow we'll examine some of the ways in which this settlement parallels the Orphan Works bill.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

Starting again!!!

2009-06-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: Back Again

6.17.09

In Orphan Works Land, no news has been good news, but that's about to change:

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/06/11/copyright-holders-acknowledge-losing-battle-for-public-consciousness-at-world-copyright-summit/

US Copyright Register Marybeth Peters told Intellectual Property Watch that orphan works legislation is expected to be introduced within the next 10 days. It is her understanding there may still be some issues in the House version to be resolved, and there are some stakeholders - such as illustrators and other artists - "who are probably going to lobby pretty hard against it."

Peters said this issue is important to her, and the fact it came so close to passing last year is almost bittersweet. "What I hope it isn't ... is it's one magic moment you get" to finally get it passed, then it doesn't happen, she said.

We don't mean to disparage the Register's comments. She's had a long and distinguished career at the Copyright Office. But her statement deserves a reality check. Illustrators are not opposed to an orphan works bill. We're opposed to this bill.

We're opposed because its scope far exceeds the needs of responsible orphan works legislation.

Moreover, illustrators and artists are not the only stakeholders who oppose it. At last count, more than 83 creators organizations are on record against it, representing artists, photographers, writers, songwriters, musicians and countless small businesses.

Last year, we proposed amendments to the Orphan Works Act that would have made it a true orphan works bill. The amendments were drafted by the attorney who was chief legal counsel to the House Judiciary Committee in drafting the 1976 Copyright Act. The amendments were co-sponsored by the Artists Rights Society and the Advertising Photographers of America. They can be found here: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/07/hr-5889-amendments.html

On July 11, 2008, we submitted those amendments to both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. In our preamble we wrote this:

As rights holders, we can summarize our hopes for the Orphan Works Act simply: to see that it becomes a true orphan works bill, with no unnecessary spillover effect to damage the everyday commercial activities of working artists. We'd be happy to work with Congress to accomplish this. No legislation regarding the use of private property should be considered without the active participation of those whose property is at stake.

Last year more than 180,000 letters were sent to lawmakers from our Capwiz site. These letters did not come from obstructionists. They came from citizens whose property is at stake. They may lack the resources of big Internet companies and the access of high powered lobbyists, but last year they spoke. They asked only one thing: that Congress respect their personal property rights and amend this bill to make it nothing more than what its sponsors say they want it to be - a bill that would affect only true orphaned work.

We urge this Congress to listen.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 83 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

Google attack!

2009-04-09T10:42:00.000-07:00

The Google attack!

Hold!

2009-01-29T00:13:00.001-08:00

It seems that Obama has frozen all legislation that was going through congress in the Bush administration, so for the time being there is no activity on this matter. Will keep you informed.

Lame duck countdown!

2008-12-02T22:10:00.000-08:00

Orphan Works: A Lame Duck Countdown:
Part II. The Legislative Blueprint

12.02.08

The "legislative blueprint" for the Orphan Works Act was not drafted by the Copyright Office after their year-long Orphan Works study, but before it, by law students at the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic.

Their Copyright Clearance Initiative (CCI) is the document that first proposed the "limitation on remedies" that would radically change international copyright law. From page 5 of the CCI proposal:

"Under no circumstances will Sec. 504(c) statutory damages, attorney's fees, damages based on the user's profits or injunctive relief relating to the challenged use be available against a qualified user." http://copyright.gov/orphan/comments/OW0595-Glushko-Samuelson.pdf

This is the premise the Copyright Office adopted with only slight modifications: where the law students had proposed capping infringement fees at $100, the Copyright Office proposals changed that to an ambiguous "reasonable fee."

And how did the student authors describe their study of the orphan works issue?

"On April 11, 2003, the Clinic held a symposium with scholars, academics and other interested parties to discuss this issue. Since then, the work of CCI has focused its efforts on devising the blueprint for a legislative solution to the 'orphan works' problem...and has been in close contact with various non-profit organizations, intellectual practitioners and academics..."

A footnote names the eight "clinic students" who contributed to the "legislative solution." And among the "interested parties," the authors cite Public Knowledge, a group now actively promoting the Orphan works bill. Copyright holders were apparently not considered interested parties, as none are listed among those invited to participate.

The Clinic authors submitted their blueprint to the Copyright Office March 24, 2005. They cited no effort to survey the potential impact of their legislative solution on commercial markets - nor did the Copyright Office three years later, when they adopted the "limitation on remedies" and proposed it to Congress in their 2006 Report on Orphan Works.

The Director of the Glushko-Samuelson Law Clinic is a long-standing critic of existing copyright protections.

In 1994, legal scholar Peter Jaszi wrote that in the new "information environment" created by the internet, authors, artists and others "may not need the long, intense protection afforded by conventional copyright -- no matter how much they would like to have it."

Copyright, he wrote, is rooted in outdated concepts of "possessive individualism." The "romantic myth of authorship," he argued, is a vestige of the 18th and 19th centuries "in which entrepreneurial publishers...[and] entrepreneurial writers...played out their shared conviction that the "individual [is] essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities -- and thus of whatever can be made of them."

Professor Jaszi has criticized the US for joining the international Berne Copyright Convention, calling it "an international agreement grounded in thoroughly Romantic assumptions about creativity." And he noted with disapproval:

"The first Act of this preeminent 'authors' rights' treaty in 1886 represented the culmination of a process which got underway in the mid-nineteenth-century with Victor Hugo's vigorous campaign for the rights of European writers and artists. Other famous 'authors' rallied to the cause: Gerhard Joseph suggests that the manic energy with which Charles Dickens championed international copyright stemmed from the novelist's private insecurities about his own 'originality.'"*

Note the scare quotes around "authors rights" and "originality." The Professor appears to subscribe to the postmodern cliché that all art is a form of collage and that authorship and originality are merely covers for one writers "vigor" or another's "manic energy" and "insecurities."

Maybe so, but a working author might guess that Dickens and Hugo were merely protecting their copyrights because that's how they made a living.

Citing the authority of postmodern critics, Professor Jaszi laments that their "critique of authorship" "has gone unheard by intellectual property lawyers."

"However enthusiastically legal scholars may have thrown themselves into 'deconstructing' other bodies of legal doctrine, copyright has remained untouched by the implications of the Derridean proposition that the inherent instability of meaning derives not from authorial subjectivity but from intertextuality. Above all, the questions posed by Michel Foucault in 'What Is an Author?' about the causes and consequences of the persistent, overdetermined power of the author construct -- with their immediate significance for law -- have gone largely unattended by theorists of copyright law, to say nothing of practitioners or, most critically, judges and legislators." -Page 12 The Construction of Authorship*

Or to put it in plain English: why hasn't Congress harkened to some collectivist literary critics and written their debatable theories into US copyright law?

With the Orphan Works bill, maybe they will.

Yet if this were one's goal - to impose a collectivist agenda on US copyright law, wouldn't forthrightness be the better policy? Shouldn't you say "we want to change the laws governing a citizen's ownership of his or her intellectual property" - then present the case frankly and debate it publicly and transparently?

Wouldn't that serve the public interest better than concealing the agenda behind a claim that you're only amending the law to "find homes for the poor orphan works" or making the world safe for folks to duplicate pictures of grandma?

Tomorrow: How many letters did it take to trigger the Orphan Works Bill? Would you believe 215?

*Quotes from the Introduction to The Construction of Authorship: Textual Appropriation in Law and Literature by Martha Woodmansee, Peter Jaszi, Editors, Duke University Press, 1994
http://books.google.com/books?id=dpRKltgJYYwC

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
______________________________________________________________

Over 80 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

Lame duck!

2008-12-02T22:08:00.000-08:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: Lame Duck Countdown

12.01.08

Part I. Little Known Facts

Congress will reconvene for a lame duck session next week. That means Orphan Works backers may try again to pass their bill by suspending the rules. We believe this bill is too controversial to be passed by backroom dealing. It would let commercial interests harvest and monetize the personal property of ordinary citizens without their knowledge.

The bill can be improved, and we've offered amendments that would improve it. But there's not enough time to improve it during a lame duck session. The bill should be held over until the next session of Congress, when those whose livelihood it will threaten can have the opportunity to present their case.

Over the next few days, we'll highlight some little known facts about the way this bill has been conceived, drafted and promoted. We believe these facts raise serious questions about the legislative process that has brought this legislation to the brink of passage:

1. The "legislative blueprint" for the Orphan Works bill was not the result of the Copyright Office's year-long Orphan Works Study. It was drafted before the study began, by law students who made no apparent effort to survey its potential impact on commercial markets.

2. The blueprint was drafted under the guidance of a legal scholar who opposes current copyright protections. He has written that authors in the internet age "may not need the long, intense protection afforded by conventional copyright -- no matter how much they would like to have it."

3. The Copyright Office received barely 200 relevant letters to their Orphan Works Study. Although they testified to Congress that the number was "over 850," they failed to acknowledge that more than 600 letters had to be dismissed as irrelevant or too vague to determine their relevance to orphaned work.

4. In their Orphan Works Report, the Copyright Office failed to acknowledge a unified statement submitted by 42 national and international visual arts organizations. This statement called for the maintenance of existing copyright protections and warned that a bill drafted too broadly would spread uncertainty in commercial markets.

5. The Copyright Office studied the specific subject of orphaned work, yet concluded they had discovered a widespread "market failure" in commercial markets. But since they didn't study commercial markets, there's no evidence for this conclusion in their report.

6. The principal author of the Orphan Works Report has acknowledged that their true goal was to "pressure" working authors into relying on registries to protect their work. He said this was necessary because artists and photographers have "failed to collectivize."

7. The first commercial Orphan Works domain name was registered by an anonymous party more than two years before the Copyright Office announced their Study. Did this anonymous party have a crystal ball? How did he know the Copyright Office would ever study orphan works? How did he know they'd open the door to commercial usage? And why did he register anonymously?

8. Two of the key players in the legislative process have already left government service and gone to work for companies that stand to profit from passage of the bill. On the other hand, one of the parties who testified in favor of the bill has already gone to the Copyright Office. She's now in charge of orphan works.

We think these and other little known facts give lawmakers sufficient reason not to pass this bill without a thorough vetting.

Tomorrow: The Legislative Blueprint: How a copyright critic and his students tackled the "orphan works issue."

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
______________________________________________________________

Over 80 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-11-22T22:51:00.000-08:00

Orphan Works Update: House Recesses Until December

11.20.08

The lame duck session that started yesterday recessed abruptly this morning. Lawmakers plan to reconvene December 8th, subject to the Chair's discretion. We don't know how long they'll be in session when they return and economic developments could bring them back sooner.

We'll keep our eyes peeled, our ears open and update you when we learn more. In the meantime, have a great Thanksgiving, rest up and get ready for another bumpy ride. Thanks to all of you for your dedication and perseverance.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
______________________________________________________________

Over 80 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators.

U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267

CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson _______ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act." The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

Please post or forward this message to any interested party.
STOP THE U.S. ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Just in!!

2008-11-22T22:49:00.000-08:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works Update: Congress has reconvened today.

11.19.08

They're scheduled to be in session until Friday, although that could change. And although sponsors of the Orphan Works bill say publicly that it won't come up, sources have told us they'll try to use the lame duck session to pass it by means of another back room deal.

Currently the situation in Washington is fluid, but if deals are being made, they'll be made before the bill is placed on the Suspensions calendar. Then they'll try to pass it immediately. How we respond will depend on developments. But while we keep watch, consider this news from the National Journal, Nov. 12, 2008:

Conyers To Abolish IP Subcommittee On Judiciary Panel
by Andrew Noyes

"House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers will abolish the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property in the new Congress and instead keep intellectual property issues at the full committee level, a Judiciary aide told CongressDaily today."

This is the subcommittee that spawned the Orphan Works Act and placed it on the "Rocket Docket." Yet remember last spring, when those lobbying for this bill warned us that unless we accepted it - no matter how bad it was - that the next chairman of the Subcommittee would be a copyright foe and would pass a worse one? Well, now the Subcommittee itself won't exist. So much for urging artists to bet against themselves!

This bill is very controversial. It would strip ordinary citizens of their intellectual property rights without due process. This is no way to pass legislation that would radically change US property laws. The bill can be fixed, but there is no time to fix it in a lame duck session. Stay tuned.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
______________________________________________________________

Over 80 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators.

U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267

CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson __________ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act." The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

Please post or forward this message to any interested party.
STOP THE U.S. ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Just in!!

2008-10-07T22:14:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: The Big Internet Factor

10.7.08

On October 2, several professional organizations sent a letter to every member of Congress, calling attention to the role of big internet companies in orphan works legislation. Here's an excerpt:

"We believe these bills mask an effort by Big Internet companies to profit by undermining existing global intellectual property rights protections...

"The lobbying efforts to promote this legislation pit small entrepreneurs and artists of all kinds against some of the largest and most well-financed Internet powerhouses in America...

"We find it deeply disturbing that the U.S. Copyright Office has so clearly and unambiguously advocated legislation that will privilege large commercial interests such as Google at the expense of creators and the countless small businesses that serve, and are dependent on the creative community.

"We find this even more troubling in light of Google's substantial contribution to the Library of Congress at a time when the Copyright Office was preparing its Orphan Works recommendations -- and at a time when Google had acknowledged to the SEC that its financial well-being is dependent on a business model that has already engendered multiple lawsuits for copyright infringement totaling billions of dollars.

"Google and other large database, advertising and search engine companies clearly have a major financial stake in the weakening of copyright law through new legislation. The Orphan Works Acts, if enacted in either of its current forms, would solve the problem that has vexed so many start-up internet companies: how to make money by giving away free content. By opening the door to potentially billions of "permitted" infringements of protected copyrights, this legislation would allow Big Internet to create an entirely new business model, by licensing content they don't have to pay for - through the digitizing, archiving and monetizing of the intellectual property of ordinary citizens."

To read the full letter go to: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/10/orphan-works-big-internet-factor.html

The letter is signed by representatives of:

The Illustrators' Partnership of America
The Advertising Photographers of America
The Artists Foundation
The National Writers Union
pro-imaging.org
The Association of American Editorial Cartoonists
The National Cartoonists Society
______________________________________________________________

Over 79 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators.

U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267

CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson __________ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act." The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

Please post or forward this message to any interested party.
STOP THE U.S. ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Just in!!

2008-10-02T21:59:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

THE HOUSE ORPHAN WORKS BILL (H.R. 5889)
IS MOVING IN THE HOUSE NOW

10.2.08

Phone, fax, email these Congressman immediately

DELAHUNT Phone (202) 225 3111 Fax (202) 225-5658
Phone: (617) 770-3700 Fax: (617) 770-2984

CONYERS Phone: (202) 225-5126 Fax: (202) 225-0072
Phone: (313) 961-5670 Fax: (313) 226-2085

NADLER Phone: (202) 225-5635 Fax: (202) 225-6923
Phone: (212) 367-7350 Fax: (212) 367-7356

BERMAN Phone: (202) 225-4695 Fax: (202) 225-3196
Phone: (818) 994-7200 Fax: (818) 994-1050

EXPRESS YOUR OUTRAGE AT THE WAY THIS IS BEING DONE

We've been getting assurances all day that the bill was "dead for this year."

TELL THEM NOT TO PASS THIS ANTI-COPYRIGHT LAW

* UNDER COVER OF NIGHT
* UNDER COVER OF ECONOMIC CRISIS
* UNDER COVER OF ANOTHER TELEVISED DEBATE

TELL THEM THIS IS AN OUTRAGEOUS WAY TO RE-WRITE THE COPYRIGHT LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party.
_______________________________________________________________

For news and information:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 75 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267

CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson __________ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act." The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

STOP THE U.S. ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-10-02T03:04:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: Not Dead Till It's Dead

10.1.08

Wired Magazine has posted an article: "'Orphan Works' Copyright Law Dies Quiet Death" http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/orphan-works-co.html
Well, we can hope. But we're dealing with a.) a fluid situation in Washington; and b.) special interests determined to pass this bill. So our assessment:

It's not dead till it's dead.

According to our DC sources, the most efficient way for Congress to pass this bill now would be for the House to scrap their own version and adopt the Senate's. There are procedural ways they can do this. Some say they will; some say they won't. It's enough to know they can.

There are special interest groups promoting the House bill now: big stock houses, for example, like Getty and Corbis, and groups working with them. They want an infringer-friendly "dark archive," a privately-owned "entity" sanctioned by the Copyright Office where infringers would file a notice of intent to infringe a work.

Since artists would not have access to this dark archive, the "sanctioned entity" would be of no use to us until our work has been infringed and we've filed a case in federal court. And then it would mostly serve the interests of infringers - letting them prove in court they had done the minimal necessary paperwork before they infringed.

The important thing to remember about the House bill is that there is no protection for artists in it. It would simply give more middlemen a chance to profit from this gutting of copyright law.

We know it's hard to ask Congress to focus on copyright law with a financial crisis looming. But we didn't pick this fight and it's our rights at stake if we don't.

There is no national emergency for orphan works that requires Congress to pass this bill - which was drafted in secret - in the dark of night.

Please contact your House Representative today. Tell them not to pass the House bill. Tell them not to adopt the Senate's.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

TAKE ACTION: EMAIL CONGRESS NOW
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party.
_______________________________________________________________

For news and information:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 75 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267

CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson __________ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act." The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

STOP THE U.S. ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-09-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

Orphan Works: Connect the Dots

9.30.08

1. Web firms quietly win copyright victory in Congress

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Sept 29 -- As the media turned its attention last weekend to battles on Capitol Hill over the fate of the proposed Wall Street bailout bill, Internet companies including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. quietly walked away with a legislative victory that could facilitate their use of copyrighted material.

The Senate on Friday passed the Orphan Works Act of 2008, legislation that weakens copyright protection for works whose owners cannot be located. The legislation has now been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.

The legislation requires only that a company make a "reasonably diligent" search to locate a copyright owner before using their work in media including the Internet, and limits compensation required for the use of an infringed work.

-By John Letzing, MarketWatch Sept. 29, 2008
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/web-firms-quietly-win-copyright/story.aspx?guid={E21206C0-98F5-459B-9506-8133CBD82859}&dist=hpts

2. Google Acknowledges Copyright Infringement Claims Could Harm Business

ILLUSTRATORS PARTNERSHIP Sept 30 -- In March 2007, Google filed a mandatory 10-Q Filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In it, they acknowledged: "copyright claims filed against us [by copyright owners] alleging that features of certain of our products and services, including Google Web Search, Google News, Google Video, Google Image Search, Google Book Search and YouTube, infringe their rights."

Google admitted that "[a]dverse results in these lawsuits may include awards of substantial monetary damages, costly royalty or licensing agreements or orders preventing us from offering certain functionalities, and may also result in a change in our business practices, which could result in a loss of revenue for us or otherwise harm our business." (Italics added.)

--Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, Illustrators Partnership
http://investor.google.com/documents/20070331_10-Q.html

3. Google Sees Value in Orphan Works

ILLUSTRATORS PARTNERSHIP March 8, 2006 -- At the Copyright Office's Orphan Works Roundtables, July 26-27, 2005, Alexander MacGilivray of Google stated:

"The thing that I would encourage the Copyright Office to consider is not just the very, very small scale -the one user who wants to make use of the [orphan] work - but also the very, very large scale - and talking in the millions of works. - page 21

"Google strongly believes that these orphan works are both worthwhile, useful, and extremely valuable." - page 119

"We expect that our use of these orphan works will likely be in the 1 million works range..." (Italics added.) - page 166

"[W]e know that many of them [orphan works] will be in the public domain, that most of their authors won't care. But there are a few [authors] that really will care and they will come forward [to claim authorship] and it will be extremely inefficient for us." (Italics added.) -page 166
(Page numbers are from Copyright Office transcripts.)

Orphan Works Roundtables were held by the US Copyright Office July 26-7, 2005 in Washington DC
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/0726LOC.PDF

4. Google Donates $3 Million to U.S. Library of Congress

Australian IT Nov 23, 2005 -- The U.S. Library of Congress is kicking off a campaign to work with other nation's libraries to build a World Digital Library, starting with a $US3 million donation from Google.

-Eric Auchard in San Francisco | November 23, 2005
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,17339145%5E15409%5E%5Enbv%5E15306-15322,00.html

TAKE ACTION: EMAIL CONGRESS NOW
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party.
_______________________________________________________________

For news and information:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 75 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists.

INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267

CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson __________ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act." The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

STOP THE ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Just in!

2008-09-29T01:09:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: Legislation by Misdirection

9.29.08

The architects of the Orphan Works Act have already placed testaments to the bill on their websites:

Senator Leahy: http://leahy.senate.gov/issues/OrphanWorks.html
Senator Hatch: http://tinyurl.com/3jsq5o

They say this "landmark intellectual property bill" will "unlock proverbial attics of copyrighted works" whose owners can't be found. Is that really what all the fuss has been about?

No. If that were the case, the problems could be solved with a modest expansion of Fair Use. It's not proverbial closets we fear seeing unlocked. It's our commercial inventories, which would be exposed to potential infringement.

And while one Senator pointedly writes that the bill "does not dramatically restructure copyright law" (emphasis added), he's right: it doesn't "restructure" it. It merely redefines an orphaned work so broadly that it would let users infringe millions of works as orphans on the premise that some might be.

And why, if the bill is only meant to benefit libraries and museums, have the doors been opened wide for commercial usage?

A Fundamental Change to Copyright Law

For us, the saddest of these postings is on the Copyright Office website itself. http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/ There, Marybeth Peters, the Register of Copyrights explains that this bill is necessary because the U.S., in trying to harmonize our law with international agreements, has created too many orphans.

But that's not the sad part. There are orphans. She's entitled to her belief. And as Register of Copyrights, she's entitled to lobby for a change in the law. But what's sad is that the Register, who we've respected for years as an advocate for creators rights, has chosen to justify this legislative scheme by mischaracterizing the honest objections that creators have raised in good faith, again and again.

Here's how she summarizes the objections of the hundreds of thousands of artists, writers, photographers and musicians who oppose this bill:

"Some critics [she writes] believe that the legislation is unfair because it will deprive copyright owners of injunctive relief, statutory damages, and actual damages. I do not agree."

Well, those are all real issues, but they've never been our focus. We've made our case clearly, simply and often.

Our objection goes to the heart of the matter. Here it is, as one of us expressed it in his opening statement at the Small Business Administration Roundtable, August 8:

"The bill's sponsors say it's merely a small adjustment to copyright law. In fact, its logic
reverses copyright law. It presumes that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right and that it's your obligation to make your work available. If this bill passes, in theUnited States, copyright will no longer be the exclusive right of the copyright holder."
- From "Orphan Works: A Hobson's Choice for Artists," by Brad Holland August 8 2008

And in case the point needed elaboration:

"This exclusive right matters to artists for three reasons:
· Creative control: No one can change your work without your permission;
· Ownership: No one can use your work without your permission;
· Value: In the marketplace, your ability to sell exclusive rights to a client triples the value
of your work.
- http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/08/orphan-works-hobsons-choice-for-artists.html

The Orphan Works Act passed by the Senate Friday explicitly voids that exclusive right as expressed in Article 9 of the Berne Copyright Convention:

(1) Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall have the exclusive right of authorizing the reproduction of these works, in any manner or form.

(2) It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author.

(3) Any sound or visual recording shall be considered as a reproduction for the purposes of this Convention.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/9.html

There can be no responsible argument that the Orphan Works Act is consistent with Article 9 of Berne. None.

Simple reason: the Orphan Works Act does not limit exemptions to an author's exclusive right to "certain special cases." Case closed.

There are many other reasons to object to this terrible bill: it violates the entirety of Article 9. But we only need to make this single point to show that it's a radically new copyright law.

Hiding the Rabbit

The key to the Congressional magic act has been to hide an anti-copyright rabbit in an Orphan Works hat while misdirecting attention to a tedious debate about "reasonably diligent searches," injunctive relief and statutory damages.

Meanwhile the secret of the trick has been simple: redefine an orphaned work as "a work by an unlocatable author."

This new definition would permit any person to infringe any work by any artist at any time for any reason - no matter how commercial - so long as the infringer found the author sufficiently hard to find.

Since everybody can be hard for somebody to find, this voids a rights holder's exclusive right to his own property. It defines the public's right to use private property as a default position, available to anyone whenever the property owner fails to make himself sufficiently available.

This is a new definition of copyright law.

The headline on the Copyright Office website should read:

In the United States, Copyright Will No Longer Be the Exclusive Right of the Copyright Holder.

This headline would at least have the virtue of candor.

On March 13, the Register of Copyrights testified before the House IP Subcommittee. On page 1 of her testimony she said:

"Every country has orphan works and I believe that, sooner or later, every country will be motivated to consider a solution. The solution proposed by the Copyright Office is a workable one and will be of interest to other countries."
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat031308.html

You can bet it will be of interest to other countries, because the copyrights of other countries can now be orphans in the U.S. too. The Copyright Office and the Senate have thrown down a gauntlet to the world.

Write your congressional representatives today and tell them not to follow.

-Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

TAKE ACTION: EMAIL CONGRESS NOW
Tell the House Judiciary Committee not to adopt the Senate version.

We've supplied a special letter for this purpose:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party.
_______________________________________________________________

For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 70 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

The Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Please post or forward this email to any interested party.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-09-28T21:59:00.001-07:00

Orphan Works: The Devil's Own Day
Never Too Busy to Pass Special
Interest Legislation 9.28.08
As lawmakers struggled Friday to clean up the mess on Wall Street, sponsors of the Orphan Works Act passed more special interest legislation. Their bill would force copyright holders to subsidize giant copyright databases run by giant internet firms.

Like the companies now needing billion dollar bailouts, these copyright registries - which would theoretically contain the entire copyright wealth of the US - would presumably be "too big to fail." Yet it's our wealth, not theirs, the scheme would risk.

Small business owners didn't ask for this legislation. We don't want it and we don't need it. Our opposition numbers have been growing daily. So Friday, the bill's sponsors reached for the hotline.

What is Hotlining?

Critics of hotlining say "that lawmakers are essentially signing off on legislation neither they nor their staff have ever read."

"In order for a bill to be hotlined, the Senate Majority Leader and Minority Leader must agree to pass it by unanimous consent, without a roll-call vote. The two leaders then inform Members of this agreement using special hotlines installed in each office and give Members a specified amount of time to object - in some cases as little as 15 minutes. If no objection is registered, the bill is passed."
- Roll Call, Sept 17, 2007

In other words, a Senate bill can pass by "unanimous consent" even if some Senators don't know about it.

The Devil's Own Day

Senators Leahy and Hatch hotlined the Orphan Works Act twice last summer. Each time came at the end of a day, at the end of a week, near the end of a legislative session. Each time lawmakers were distracted by other issues and other plans. Each time artists rallied quickly and each time a Senator put a hold on the bill.

Friday the Senators found a new opportunity.

With lawmakers struggling to package a 700 billion dollar bailout to avert a worldwide economic meltdown, with the rest of the country focused on Presidential debates, with Washington in chaos and Congressional phone lines jammed, they hotlined an amended bill. On short notice, even the legislative aides we could reach by phone said they didn't have time to read it. And so, while we were rushing to get out a second email blast to artists, the bill passed by "unanimous consent" - in other words, by default.

What better way to pass a bill that was drafted in secret than to pass it while nobody's looking?

Since Friday, artists have been conducting bitter post mortems on their blogs. That's understandable, but it's not time yet.

"When Sherman arrived at Grant's headquarters later that evening, he found the general - broken sword and all - chewing on a soggy cigar in the rain, which had begun soaking the battlefield.

'Well, Grant,' Sherman said to his friend, 'we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?'

'Yes,' replied Grant, 'lick 'em tomorrow, though.'"

The Senate passed their bill Friday, but the House hasn't. There's still time to write, phone and fax your congressional representatives. Tell them not to let the House Judiciary Committee fold their bill and adopt the Senate's.

Tell Congress to protect the private property of small businesses. Lick 'em tomorrow.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
Quote from "The Devil's Own Day," by Christopher Allen, January 2000 America's Civil War Magazine

TAKE ACTION: EMAIL CONGRESS TONIGHT
Tell the House Judiciary Committee not to adopt the Senate version.

We've supplied a special letter for this purpose: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party.

Responce!

2008-09-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works Opposition: Plan B

SEPT 27 Yesterday, in a cynical move, the sponsors of the Senate Orphan Works Act passed their controversial bill by a controversial practice known as hotlining.

With lawmakers scrambling to raise 700 billion dollars to bail out businesses that are "too big to fail," the Senate passed a bill that would force small copyright holders to subsidize big internet interests such as Google, which has already said it plans to use millions of the images this bill will orphan.

With the meltdown on Wall Street, this is no time for Congress to concentrate our nation's copyright wealth in the hands of a few privately owned corporate databases. The contents of these databases would be more valuable than secure banking information. Yet this bill would compel creators to risk their own intellectual property to supply content to these corporate business models. That means it would be our assets at risk in the event of their failure or mismanagement.

As David Rhodes, President of the School of Visual Arts has said, the Orphan Works bill would socialize the expense of copyright protection while privatizing the profit of creative endeavors. Copyright owners neither want nor need this legislation. It will do great harm to small businesses. We already have a banking crisis. Congress should not lay the groundwork for a copyright crisis.

--Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Illustrators' Partnership

NOW FOR PLAN B

We MUST try to stop the House Judiciary Committee from folding their bill (HR5889) and adopting the Senate version.

PLEASE EMAIL CONGRESS TODAY.
If you've done it before, do it again!

It takes only a minute to use our new special letter.
Click on the link below, enter your zip code, and take the next steps.
Thanks to all of you who heeded the call to action yesterday.

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

_______________________________________________________________

For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 70 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

The Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Please post or forward this email to any interested party.

The Senate has just passed their version of the Orphan Works Bill!

2008-09-26T22:29:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: Risking Our Nation's Copyright Wealth

The Senate has just passed their version of the Orphan Works Bill

Now we must try to stop the House Judiciary Committee from folding their bill and adopting the Senate version.

We've supplied a special letter for this purpose.

PLEASE EMAIL CONGRESS TONIGHT.

USE THIS LINK
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

-Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
__________________________________________________

For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 70 organizations are united in opposing this bill in its current form. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

The Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public. Sample letters have been provided. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-09-26T22:28:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

ORPHAN WORKS BILL HOTLINED
Again.

THIS MEANS IT COULD PASS THE SENATE THIS AFTERNOON
PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS IMMEDIATELY

ASK THEM TO VOTE NO ON THIS BILL:
S2913 THE SHAWN BENTLEY ORPHAN WORKS ACT OF 2008

ASK THEM TO PUT A "HOLD" ON THE BILL:
TELL THEM YOU OPPOSE THIS CONTROVERSIAL BILL
ASK THEM NOT TO PASS IT WITHOUT A FULL AND OPEN HEARING
WARN THEM THAT IT WILL DO GREAT HARM TO SMALL BUSINESSES

To find your Senators' phone numbers go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works site:

http://illustratorspartnership.capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/dbq/officials/

At the top of the home page, click on "Elected Officials"
You'll find a US map:
Click on your state,
Then "Senators,"
Then click on each Senator's name,
Then click "Contact."
This will give you their phone and fax numbers.

Please phone and fax them both immediately.

-Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

__________________________________________________

Over 70 organizations are united in opposing this bill in its current form. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

The Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public. Sample letters have been provided. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-09-15T22:46:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: Responses to the House Judiciary Committee

If you've written Congress about the Orphan Works bill, you may have received a reply based on talking points supplied by the House Judiciary Committee. Recently, a Congressman asked us to respond to them in detail. On September 1, we did. We've posted our replies on our blog:
http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

The Committee's statements are taken verbatim from their talking points. Our responses have been filed with the Small Business Administration for distribution to members of Congress. Artists are free to use any of our responses in their own letters to lawmakers.

Some excerpts:

[T]his bill re-defines an "orphaned work" as any work by any author that any potential user ever finds hard to find. Sooner or later, that could be every work by every author. This bill will define millions of works as orphans on the premise that some may be.
Why must an owner be "easily found" by parties other than those the owner chooses to do business with? Is there a national emergency in visual images that requires legislation to regulate this sector of the free market?
There's no need for government intervention here. We're professionals. We're alive, working and managing our copyrights. We can be found. Our clients find us all the time. But that doesn't mean that anyone, anywhere can find us. And frankly, why should it? Basing a law on this questionable premise is not solving an orphaned work problem. It's legalizing the taking of private property.
The argument that artists can always resolve orphan works disputes in court is a measure of the bill's most serious defect: Any law that drives business decisions into the courts is bad for business and bad for the courts.
We believe our work benefits the public by being published through the channels where we wish to publish it. The current copyright law works by giving us the incentive to keep doing this.
Authors' rights are exclusive. Public interest cannot compel creators to publish their work. So by what right of eminent domain can government give members of the public the right to publish their work for them?

- Brad Holland, for the Illustrators' Partnership

For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Take Action: Don't Let Congress Orphan Our Work
E-mail your Senators and Representatives with one click. Go to:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

This Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public.
Sample letters have been provided. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.

Two minutes is all it takes to write Congress and defend full copyright protection for creators.

This email may be posted or forwarded in its entirety to any interested party.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-09-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

With Congress back in session this week, Orphan Works rumors are back too.
According to some sources, deals have been made to pass the bills quickly.
According to others, the bills have stalled for this session.
Here's what we know, independent of conflicting sources:

SEPT 6 OpenCongress Lists "8 Controversial Bills That Congress Still May Pass"
In Congress Gossip, by Donny Shaw, the article notes that the Orphan Works Bills "have been called out by concerned citizens... but are in a good position to quickly become law" in the next several weeks. The author quotes artist Brad Holland and attorney Larry Lessig in opposition to the legislation, and ends with this quote from "an anonymous OpenCongress user":

"Isn't it funny how music is getting huge, sledgehammer like protection in HR 4279 and visual art is getting devalued and made worthless by this bill, HR 5889? Music must just be soo much more valuable. It's all about the corporate interests. Artists need to band together for our own protection and fight this dangerous bill. I'm an art student, and while I will never stop making art I'm worried I'll be unable to make a living at it. It's never been easy to be an artist without this kind of stuff coming along and making it impossible for us."

Read the full article here: http://www.opencongress.org/articles/view/636-8-Controversial-Bills-That-Congress-Still-May-Pass

SEPT 10 Authors Groups Submit Opposition Papers to Small Business Administration
The Illustrators' Partnership, Artists Rights Society and Advertising Photographers of America have submitted over 60 papers and articles to the Office of Advocacy of the US Small Business Administration. These written statements were filed on behalf of attorneys, illustrators, designers, fine artists, photographers, songwriters, musicians, writers, members of the art licensing community and other small business owners. All are opposed to the bill.

These papers are the written statements submitted in conjunction with the Orphan Works Roundtable, conducted by the SBA August 8, 2008 at the Salmagundi Club in New York City. The package will be distributed to lawmakers in both houses of Congress.

The webcast of the SBA Roundtable is available here: http://videos.cmitnyc.com/asip.html

A PDF of the collected papers will be available soon from the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

AUGUST 30 Copyright Expert Releases Analysis of Orphan Works Bills
Leading copyright expert Jane C. Ginsburg of the Columbia Law School has published a major Orphan Works piece, the first of a two part article:
Recent Developments in US Copyright Law: Part I - "Orphan" Works.

Professor Ginsburg's scholarly paper raises several critical questions about the current legislation. Among various points, she notes that certain provisions appear to violate Article 10.1 of the Berne Convention, which prohibits prejudicial exceptions to an author's exclusive right of copyright. She states that the preclusion of injunctive relief with respect to derivative works would appear to force authors to tolerate "even derivative uses they find offensive or that distort their works," and she adds that this "has economic consequences as well," depriving the author of the right "to grant exclusive derivative work rights to a third party. The bill thus potentially devalues the derivative work right."

"The US proposals," she writes, "may run afoul of EU restrictions" for various reasons, and adds: "[t]here may also be Berne- compatibility problems regarding the inclusion of non-divulged [unpublished] works in the proposed orphan works regime...[T]he bills should exclude "orphan works" which have never been disclosed to the public, and whose authors are still living."

"The 'progress of knowledge' to which US copyright aspires," she writes, "is achieved not only by putting works into circulation, but also by fostering conditions conducive to creativity."

The full paper can be accessed here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1263361

SEPT 6 French Magazine Telerama Sounds Orphan Works Warning
Main basse sur les images "orphelines" by Olivier Pascal-Moussellard. In this article, initiated by artist Etienne Delessert, the popular French magazine notes that 60 organizations oppose the controversial US bill and warns that it threatens to harm international artists as well "if they don't wake up." In opposition to the bill, it quotes Brad Holland and Dr. Ted Feder, President of the Artists Rights Society, which represents the estates of Matisse, Picasso, Chagall and tens of thousands of others. It also quotes Stefan Biberfeld, legal director of Corbis Europe, noting that stock agencies such as Getty and Corbis will benefit from passage of the legislation because it will allow them to market orphaned work without fear of being "intimidated" by copyright owners. The article is in French.

"LE FIL ARTS ET SCÈNES- Menace sur les droits d'auteur : une loi américaine veut rendre libre l'usage des photos, tableaux ou dessins dont on ne connaît pas l'auteur. A qui profite-t-elle ?"

"Simple question de bon sens, disent les uns. Hold-up légal, rétorquent les autres. Légal, car perpétré par les députés et sénateurs américains, téléguidés en coulisse par les géants d'Internet. L'objet du casse ? Les droits d'auteur des peintres, dessinateurs et photographes américains, mais peut-être aussi ceux de leurs collègues étrangers s'ils ne se réveillent pas."

TRANSLATION: "Threat to artists' copyrights: A U.S. law would free up the exploitation of photos, paintings, and illustrations whose creators cannot be located. Who profits?

Some maintain that "It's a simple question of common sense". Others retort that "It's legal highway robbery." Legal, because the law is being perpetrated by U.S. Congressmen and Senators remotely controlled by internet giants operating behind the scenes. The target of this break-in: the copyrights of American painters, photographers and illustrators, but perhaps also of their foreign colleagues if they don't wake up in time."

Read the full article: http://www.telerama.fr/scenes/main-basse-sur-les-images-orphelines,33013.php

For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Take Action: Don't Let Congress Orphan Our Work
E-mail your Senators and Representatives with one click. Go to:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

This Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public.
Sample letters have been provided. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write. Two minutes is all it takes to write Congress and defend full copyright protection for creators.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-08-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

The webcast of the Orphan Works Roundtable is now available here:

http://videos.cmitnyc.com/asip.html

"A Seminal Event"
"Unprecedented"
"The most effective advocacy in opposition to these bills I have seen."
"The Gathering of the Tribes"

These are some of the comments we've received from last Friday's Roundtable on Orphan Works, conducted by the Small Business Administration. Artists, photographers, songwriters, musicians, writers and spokesmen for collateral businesses all made this the best attended Roundtable the SBA has conducted.

As one member of the audience said, perhaps the only good thing about the Orphan Works bill is that it's brought so many creative communities together. The full house is the best measure of the concern creators have about this effort to undermine copyright law.

Here are some of the key points to emerge from the discussion:
The high cost of digitizing and registering work with commercial databases will make compliance impossible for most artists.
This will cause billions of unregistered works to fall into the public domain.
To make money, commercial databases will have to promote and facilitate infringement.
Infringer-friendly databases will compete with artists for clients.

As one panelist summed up: this bill "will socialize costs and privatize profits."

If you missed this important industry event, please watch it now at your convenience.

Please forward this message and link to every copyright holder you know.

You may review the agenda, the panelists and their biographies on the Illustrators' Partnership blog:
http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/08/80808-sba-hearing-on-orphan-works.html

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-08-04T22:41:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

A Reminder: You are invited to attend
THE ORPHAN WORKS ROUNDTABLE
CONDUCTED BY THE SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

How Will the Orphan Works Bill Economically Impact Small Entities?
This Friday, August 8, 2008
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Salmagundi Club
47 Fifth Avenue (between 11th & 12th Streets)
New York, NY 10003
212-255-7740
http://www.salmagundi.org
Free Admission

If you live in the New York area, please attend this critical event in person. Congress established the SBA's Office of Advocacy to represent the views of people like us before Federal agencies and Congress. One of their goals is to ensure that our voices aren't lost within the lawmaking process. Your presence at this grassroots event will do much to see that our voices get heard.

Until now, Orphan Works legislation has been driven by anti-copyright forces and special interest groups. Their talking points have defined the issue. That's why, if you've written lawmakers, you may have received those talking points as a response.

We need to get our own views before lawmakers. We've had to go to Washington to make the case for artists. Now Washington is coming to us. We thank the SBA for agreeing to conduct this unprecedented field hearing and we thank the Salmagundi Club for offering us their space.

Don't miss this opportunity to show that our industry is united in opposing the Orphan Works bill.
This bill would radically change copyright law.
The change would create an entirely new business model for the licensing of copyrighted work.
That business model would favor large corporate image banks at the expense of individual creators.
This would harm artists, photographers, songwriters, musicians, writers.
It would harm the small businesses that serve and are dependent on the creative community.
This is a side of the story Congressmen haven't heard so far. We need to make it part of an open, public debate.

The Roundtable will be chaired by Tom Sullivan, Director of the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration. Eighteen distinguished panelists, all from the creative community, will represent the copyright interests of grassroots artists.

This event will be webcast.
PLEASE RSVP to illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com and include the names of those attending.

You may review the agenda, the panelists and their biographies on the IPA blog:
http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/08/80808-sba-hearing-on-orphan-works.html

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-08-01T22:23:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

You are cordially invited to attend
THE ORPHAN WORKS ROUNDTABLE AND WEBCAST
CONDUCTED BY THE SMALL BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

How Will the Orphan Works Bill Economically Impact Small Entities?
Friday, August 8, 2008
10:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon
Salmagundi Club
47 Fifth Avenue (between 11th & 12th Streets)
New York, NY 10003
212-255-7740
http://www.salmagundi.org
Free Admission

Please attend this important industry event. Let government officials hear directly from those of us who will be harmed if this bill passes.

Until now, the Orphan Works bill has been driven by anti-copyright forces and special interest groups. This will be our first opportunity to be heard in a government sponsored forum devoted to the business interests of copyright holders. The Roundtable will be chaired by Tom Sullivan, Director of the Office of Advocacy of the Small Business Administration (SBA). It will give artists from the Northeast the chance to explain the impact of Orphan Works legislation on our careers and the art we create.
Will the cost of compliance create an unreasonable burden on artists, writers and musicians?
Will the failure to register work lead to the loss of copyrights?
Why should artists be forced to supply their business data to commercial databases?
Will the bill create a new business model favoring large corporations at the expense of individual artists?
Will this change the nature of competition for all of us?
Eighteen distinguished panelists, all from the creative community, will represent the copyright interests of illustrators, photographers, fine artists, art licensors, writers, musicians, and the collateral businesses that serve and are dependent on creators.

Congress established the Office of Advocacy under Pub. L. 94-305 to represent the views of small entities before Federal agencies and Congress. Advocacy is an independent office within the Small Business Administration.

This event will be webcast.
PLEASE RSVP to illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com and include the names of those attending.

You may review the agenda, the panelists and their biographies on the IPA blog:
http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/08/80808-sba-hearing-on-orphan-works.html

Just in!! Good News!!!

2008-07-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP
Senate Orphan Works Bill Put "on Hold"

We've just received word that the Senate bill has been put "on hold." In fact, there appear to be multiple holds on it. Senators who "hold" hotlined bills do not have to identify themselves nor give their reasons for holding it. Holds are temporary. We don't know how many of you contacted your Senators on such short notice this afternoon, but many, many thanks to all of you who responded so rapidly.

Most people are unaware of the process called hotlining. In the past it was used to pass non-controversial legislation, but increasingly, it's being used to pass bills whose sponsors don't want to see debate. An excellent article in Roll Call explains the process. Here's an excerpt:

Senate conservatives are upset that the leaders of both parties in the chamber have in recent years increasingly used a practice known as "hotlining" bills - previously used to quickly move noncontroversial bills or simple procedural motions - to pass complex and often costly legislation, in some cases with little or no public debate. The increase was particularly noticeable just before the August recess, when leaders hotlined more than 150 bills, totaling millions of dollars in new spending, in a period of less than a week.

The practice has led to complaints from Members and watchdog groups alike that lawmakers are essentially signing off on legislation neither they nor their staff have ever read...

In order for a bill to be hotlined, the Senate Majority Leader and Minority Leader must agree to pass it by unanimous consent, without a roll-call vote. The two leaders then inform Members of this agreement using special hotlines installed in each office and give Members a specified amount of time to object - in some cases as little as 15 minutes. If no objection is registered, the bill is passed.

- From 'Hotlined' Bills Spark Concern
By John Stanton, Roll Call Staff
September 17, 2007
To read the full article, go to: http://tinyurl.com/3p8x2u

This is the second time the Senate Orphan Works bill has been hotlined this summer. The previous hotline came on June 5, the same week artists descended on Washington to urge lawmakers to oppose this controversial bill. The bill was put on hold that time too.

Since bills can be hotlined without prior notice, we'll all have to stay vigilant throughout the rest of this legislative session. Thanks again to all of you who responded so quickly.

Over 60 organizations, representing more than 250,000 creators, are united in opposing these bills in their current form. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.
Read the list: http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00273

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-07-30T22:03:00.001-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

ORPHAN WORKS BILL HOTLINED

THIS MEANS IT COULD PASS THE SENATE THIS AFTERNOON
PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS IMMEDIATELY

ASK THEM TO PUT A "HOLD" ON THE BILL:
S2913 THE SHAWN BENTLEY ORPHAN WORKS ACT OF 2008

TELL THEM YOU OPPOSE THIS CONTROVERSIAL BILL
ASK THEM NOT TO PASS IT WITHOUT A FULL AND OPEN HEARING
WARN THEM THAT IT WILL DO GREAT HARM TO SMALL BUSINESSES

To find your Senators' phone numbers go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works site:

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

At the top of the home page, click on "Elected Officials"
You'll find a US map:
Click on your state,
Then "Senators,"
Then click on each Senator's name,
Then click "Contact."
This will give you their phone numbers.

Please phone and fax them both.
Please call everyone you know who is an interested party and tell them we must act immediately to prevent passage of this bill.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-07-27T21:38:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

More Groups Condemn Controversial Orphan Works Bills

JULY 15, 2008 The California Copyright Conference and the Association of Independent Music Publishers have announced a joint position paper condemning the Orphan Works bills. In a five page paper they conclude: "The Orphan Works bills are deeply flawed and would have serious unintended but far reaching adverse effects."

"The final report is the result of a collaborative effort from a panel of distinguished experts who bring together differing viewpoints on copyright matters," says Cheryl Hodgson, current President of the California Copyright Conference (CCC). "The unanimity of the voice with which they have chosen to speak underscores the reason all copyright owners should read and understand the issues."

These bills "threaten to erode fundamental protections for copyright authors and owners," the paper begins. The bills will "encourage copyright infringement and objectionable uses across the full spectrum of protected artistic works":

In the process of "helping" appropriate other people's personal property, the legislation promotes the incremental dismantling of one of our nation's primary economic growth engines. The Internet, computer and consumer electronics industries utilize vast amounts of copyrighted works to attract customers to their websites, from which they derive enormous profits from advertising and subscription fees, These industries have long sought to eliminate copyright protections and to avoid paying for the content they use to lure consumers.

"The Orphan Works bill has the potential to erode the protection that copyright owners have fought for over many years," says attorney Steve Winogradsky, past President of both the California Copyright Conference and the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP). "It puts the burden on the copyright owner to find the offending parties and either negotiate with them without the remedies currently available to bring about reasonable compensation or bring costly litigation. In short, for copyright owners, the Orphan Works bill is a disaster."

View Report http://www.brandaideblog.com/pdf/Position_Statement.pdf

More than 60 groups representing illustrators, photographers, musicians and writers now openly oppose this controversial revision of US copyright law. Over 112,000 letters have been sent to lawmakers from the Illustrators Partnership advocacy site.

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work
Write Congress and fight for your copyrights

Tell the House Judiciary Committee members not to support this controversial revision of copyright law. Send this e-mail message now: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11618481

To follow current Orphan Works developments, go to the Illustrators Partnership Orphan Works blog:
http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.
Please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-07-16T06:58:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

The Orphan Works Mark-up for this week has been postponed. This gives us more time to email and fax members of the House Judiciary Committee. Write and ask them to support the amendments submitted jointly by the Illustrators' Partnership, the Artists Rights Society and the Advertising Photographers of America.

http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/07/hr-5889-amendments.html

These amendments would:
Insure that the bill will only affect true orphaned work;
Insure that the bill will not violate international trade agreements;
Insure that the bill will not take effect until a market impact survey concludes it will not harm existing commercial markets.

Otherwise, ask them not to vote this bill out of committee until Congress can hold proper hearings into the harm it will do to small businesses, individual creators and ordinary citizens.

Our sample letter to House Judiciary Committee members can be deep linked here: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11618481

Contact information for House Judiciary Committee members can be accessed here: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/07/house-judiciary-committee-contact-list.html

For Orphan Works Updates use our new Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

View the Orphan Works Forum Webcast from the Society of Illustrators:
http://www.unitedpgremote.com/society/soi_2008_05_04.html

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work
Write Congress and fight for your copyrights

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.
Please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-07-13T22:03:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

We've had word that the House Judiciary Committee may mark-up the Orphan Works Bill this week. This is the session where Committee Members will propose, accept and reject amendments to H.R. 5889. After markup, the bill could be reported out of the House Committee and go to the floor for a vote.

We've submitted several critical amendments for consideration: These would limit the scope of the bill to affect only true orphaned work. Unless such amendments are adopted, we believe the bill should not be reported out until its impact on small businesses can be determined. Here's our summary of the issues at stake in the House version of this bill:

Q What is the Orphan Works Act?
A: A proposed amendment to copyright law that would impose a radically new business model on the licensing of copyrighted work.

Q: How would it do that?
A: It would force all creators to digitize their life's work and hand it over to privately-owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement by anyone, for any purpose, however commercial or distasteful.

Q: How would it hurt me if I didn't register my work?
A: The bill would let infringers rely on for-profit registries to search for your work. If your work is not in the databases, it's a potential "orphan."

Q: What about my unpublished work?
A: The bill would apply to any work, from professional paintings to family snapshots, home videos, etc., including published and unpublished work and any work ever placed on the internet.

Q: How would these databases work?
A: No one has yet unveiled a business plan, but we suspect they'd operate like stock houses, promoting themselves as one-stop shopping centers for licensing art. If you've registered your work with them, they'll probably charge you maintenance fees and commissions for clearing your work. If you're a publisher or art director, they'll probably charge you search fees. If you're an infringer, they'll probably charge you a search fee and issue orphan certificates for any unregistered work you'd like to infringe. We assume different registries may have different terms, and any start-up terms will of course be subject to change.

Q: How will the bill affect the market for commissioned work?
A: It will be a gold mine for opportunists, favoring giant image banks over working artists. Some companies will probably sell access to orphans as royalty-free work -- or they'll harvest orphans and bundle them for sale as clip art. Other companies can harvest orphans, alter them slightly to make "derivative works" and register the derivatives as their own copyrighted product. Freelancers would then be forced to compete against their own lost art - and that of their colleagues - for the new commissions they need to make a living.

Q: But the bill's sponsors say the bill is just a small adjustment to copyright law.
A: No, it's actually a reversal of copyright law. It presumes that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right and that it's your legal obligation to make your work available.

Q: But isn't the House bill an improvement over the Senate version?
A: Only for those who intend to operate commercial databases. These registries will exist to make money. To make money, they'll have to do a lively business in clearing work for infringements. That means making their databases infringer-friendly.

Q: But isn't the House bill better because it requires an infringer to file a Notice of Use, documenting their intent to infringe?
A: The House bill creates a very low threshold for infringers to meet. They'd only have to file a text description (not the image itself) of the work they want to infringe, plus information about their search and any ownership information they've found.

Q: But won't that let artists consult the archive to see if their work has been infringed?
A: No, as currently written, the Notice of Use is a dark archive, which means you won't have access to it. If someone infringes your work and has filed a Notice of Use, you wouldn't know about it.

Q: Then how would I know if my work is in the Dark Archive?
A: You wouldn't, unless a.) you discover you've been infringed; b.) you sue the infringer in federal court; c.) the infringer asserts an Orphan Works defense. Then you can file a request to see if the infringer has filed a Notice of Use to infringe your work.

Q: Then what good does it do me for the infringer to file a Notice of Use?
A: It's of no probative value to you at all unless you go to court. And if you do, you'd better be sure of winning because otherwise, without the possibility of statutory damages and attorneys' fees, it will be too expensive for you to sue. If the Notice of Use helps anyone, it actually helps the infringer: it lets him prove in court that he followed the prescribed protocol to "legally" infringe your work.

Q: Then shouldn't we ask Congress to change the Dark Archive to an open one?
A: This would still place an impossible burden on you. Can you imagine routinely slogging through a "lost and found" containing millions of text descriptions of works to see if something sounds like one of the hundreds or thousands of illustrations you may have done?

Q: So should the infringement archive be changed to display images rather than text descriptions?
A: If so, you'd have a come-and-get-it archive for new infringers to exploit works that have already been identified as orphans by previous infringers.

Q: The bill's sponsors say the House version includes specific instructions on the requirements for diligent searches.
A: No, read the bill. It's full of ambiguous terms like "reasonable" and "diligent" that can only be decided by courts on a case-by-case basis. That could take a decade of expensive lawsuits and appeals. How many millions of copyrights will be orphaned before we learn how the courts ultimately define these vague terms?

Q: Then what can we do to improve this bill?
A: We don't believe the bill can be patched up to mitigate its harm to creators. The Orphan Works matter should be solved with carefully defined expansions of fair use to permit reproduction by libraries and archives, or for family photo restoration and duplication. Narrow exceptions like these would also meet the needs of other orphan works usage without violating artists' rights as defined by the 1976 Copyright Act, The Berne Convention and Article 13 of the TRIPs Agreement. These copyright-related international trade treaties are not just a matter of law. They codify longstanding business practices that have passed the test of time.

Q: What can we do now to oppose this legislation?
A: If you're opposed to the House bill in its current form, contact members of the full House Judiciary Committee. Ask them to adopt our amendments limiting the scope of the bill to affect only true orphaned work. Tomorrow, we'll email you a short basic letter which you may use as a template.

--Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership

Over 60 organizations are united in opposing this bill in its current form. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work

To use the Orphan Works Opposition Website just go to this link:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

Put in your zip code and follow the instructions. Your letters will be addressed and sent automatically. It takes less than 2 minutes to fight for your copyright.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.
Please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-06-25T22:56:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Here are two examples of how local groups are spreading awareness about the Orphan Works threat to copyright.

In Connecticut this week:
An Orphan Works Opposition Party
Saturday, June 28, 7:00 PM
Bottega Lounge
954 Chapel Street
New Haven, CT
(203) 562-5566
Admission Free/Open to Public

The event is open to the general public as well as visual artists, musicians, writers and independent filmmakers. Learn about the danger to copyright posed by the pending Orphan Works bill. Decorate a postcard and send it to your elected officials. Let them know that you oppose this bill. Let them know you vote. Blank pre-stamped postcards will be available with lawmakers' addresses. A $1 or $2 donation at the door will be appreciated to help defray postage, but no one will be turned away.

This party is being organized by local artists Joe Wilson and Jill Vidal and hosted by Bottega Lounge. Supplies have been donated by Hull's Art Supply & Framing, New Haven. As Joe Wilson told us:

"It's really looking bad for the local, small artist...We want people to get the word to our congressmen and senators that we do care. We think the personalized postcards will be memorable and stick in their minds, so when it comes time to vote on these bills, they'll remember how the people in their community really feel about this."

Read more in Play: New Havens Arts & Entertainment Weekly http://tinyurl.com/5mlgwc

Last week In Nashville
Saturday June 21, 2008 - Tennessee Congressman Jim Cooper and New York Congressman John Hall patiently listened to concerns and comments from a packed audience at the Sunset Grill in Nashville today.

Visual and performing arts were well represented. From radio station owners, songwriters, photographers and illustrators all breathed a sign of relief when both congressman voiced their opposition to the orphan works bill. They are on our side.

Both gave us insight into the lawmaking process in Washington: "there are two thing you don't want to watch being made, sausage and Washington law."They urged the audience let their voices be heard and rally behind all organizations opposed to this legislation.

"Many laws have been passed quickly under the door simply because no one spoke up to oppose them, or were they were just unaware," Congressman Cooper stated.

Both congressmen urged us to contact the Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI), as they have a long and successful history in dealing with Congress. "They've got teeth in Washington" Cooper said.

All in all it was refreshing to know that we at least have two on our side!

- Jeff Preston, Artist Member Society of Illustrators
Gallatin, Tennessee

To contact the NSAI, go to:
http://legislative.nashvillesongwriters.com/news.php?viewStory=61
and they have a long history of advocacy!
http://legislative.nashvillesongwriters.com/news.php?viewStory=64

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work
2 minutes is all it takes to write Congress and fight for your copyrights.
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home

Special link for our international friends and colleagues:
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267

Read the legislation's impact on visual artists
House Bill http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/bills/?billid=11320236
Senate Bill http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/bills/?billid=11322171

For more information about Orphan Works go to the
IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

A possible solution

2008-06-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERHIP

An Orphan Works Solution
We have a proposal to solve the Orphan Works issue. It would let libraries and archives digitize their collections and let individuals duplicate family photos without fear of massive infringement penalties. These are the two needs most commonly cited by the bills’ sponsors and they can be resolved quite simply. Our proposal would limit the bill’s effects to works that are really orphans, with no unnecessary spillover effect to damage the commercial activities of working copyright holders.

Digitizing the Collections of Libraries and Museums
Digitizing someone’s work is an act of reproduction and is therefore subject to the authorization of the copyright holder. But to let accredited libraries and archives bypass these authorizations, the law could grant them certain exceptions to reproduce works without the prior consent of the rights holders, mainly for preservation purposes.

To avail themselves of this privilege, institutions could file a notice of intent to infringe with the Copyright Office, documenting that they’ve made a reasonably diligent, but unsuccessful effort to find the copyright holder. These exceptions should not be extended to cover reproductions on a mass scale, because that would clearly conflict with the artists’ own exploitation of their works and that would prejudice the legitimate interests of the copyright holders, a clear violation of the 1976 Copyright Act, the Berne Convention and Article 13 of the TRIPS agreement, to which the US is a signatory.

This proposal is consistent with the submission of the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO) to the European Union’s i2010 Digital Libraries project. See our 2006 report on this: http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00195 This means our proposal would meet the needs of libraries, museums and archives, harmonize US policy with our trading partners overseas and win wide praise from the creative community in the US, who would not see the rights of their own work put at risk.

Solving the Grandma issue
We believe similar orphan works situations - family photo restoration and duplication, personal genealogy usage of orphan works, and orphan works rights clearance for documentary filmmakers – can all be resolved in a similar manner, by carefully and precisely expanding Fair Use to permit limited individual infringements under contractual agreements.

For example, family photo issues could be resolved by means of a simple contract: the person who wishes to duplicate or restore a photo of Grandma could sign an easy-to-understand agreement (with either companies such as Wal-Mart or with the photographer next door), stipulating that they've made a reasonably diligent, but unsuccessful search to identify or locate the photographer of record. By doing so, they’d qualify for a precise limited copyright exemption to restore or duplicate the work for home and/or family use only. Under this scenario, it the photographer of record subsequently shows up, the contract would define the specific remedies.

The case of an individual who wishes to duplicate his or her own family photos would be even simpler to deal with: the individual would simply sign a form stipulating that he/she is the author and copyright holder of the photo - period. Any bad-faith assertions or violations of such agreements could then be dealt with as a contractual matter between individual parties, with no unnecessary damage to the rights of others.

A Limited, Workable Solution
We believe this kind of contractual solution to individual orphan works problems would have two virtues:

1. It would create certainty by specifying the terms of each transaction and would, in fact, mirror the kind of indemnification that professional artists and photographers routinely supply to clients, stipulating that our work is original and doesn't infringe the rights of others.
2. It would have the additional virtue of requiring that only those who avail themselves of the right to infringe would be required to understand the complexities of copyright law, unlike the present bill, which would require all citizens to familiarize themselves with the risks and obligations inherent in the proposed Orphan Works Acts.
3. It would not legalize the infringement of billions of managed copyrights on the grounds that some of them might be orphans.

We believe solutions like this could be arrived at amicably by working with members of the creative community, who are familiar with how copyright law intersects with standard business practice. This kind of imaginative solution should win widespread praise from all parties, while preserving the sanctity of existing copyright-related contracts. It would protect the small businesses that are the heart and soul of the creative community and would continue to act as an on-going incentive to further the creation of new work.

—Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership

Don’t Let Congress Orphan Your Work
Please post or forward this message in its entirety to any interested party.

For more information about Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: ipa@twcny.rr.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-06-18T02:21:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

A Million People Against the Orphan Works Bill
http://www.petitiononline.com/Stop2913/petition.html

We support this petition. We urge you to sign it. Please forward the link and urge others to sign.
You can help increase the power of the petition by signing your real name and listing your artistic specialties.
If you are not a US citizen, we suggest that you note your country, and state if it is a member of the Berne Convention.

This petition is sponsored by A Million People Against the Orphan Works Bill, a new grassroots group founded by multimedia journalist Steve Lehman on Facebook and Flickr. All people are welcome to participate; it is not exclusive to these websites.

In 1987, Lehman broke the story of Tibetan unrest, later profiled in his award winning book "The Tibetans Struggle to Survive." As a visual artist intimately acquainted with the power of free speech, the protection afforded by the right to privacy, and the critical need for independent voices, Lehman, like the rest of us, is deeply troubled by any national policy that affects artists' control over their works.

Please forward this message to every artist you know.

For additional information about Orphan Works developments, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists at:

http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: ipa@twcny.rr.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-06-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

On June 12, three leading textile trade associations announced their support for the Orphan Works bill.

Writing in Textile World, James A. Morrissey writes: “The legislation, which has cleared a House subcommittee, is supported by the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, the National Textile Association (NTA) and the Decorative Fabrics Association.” http://www.textileworld.com/Articles/2008/June_2008/Textile_News/Coalition_Supports_Copyright_Legislation.html

Funny, that’s a 180 degree flip-flop from their House testimony of March 13, 2008. http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/Kevorkian080313.pdf That day a spokesperson from the textile industry testified “on behalf of the hundreds of American companies” who are members of the same three trade groups. She denounced the bill, calling it “unconscionable for Congress to try to impose millions of dollars of costs on individual companies, many of which are small businesses...”

“The proposed orphan work legislation is not a solution to the ‘orphan works’ problem,” she testified. “Instead, it is a blueprint for a radically new copyright law. The inability to distinguish between abandoned copyrights and those whose owners are simply hard to find...is the Catch-22 of the Orphan Works project. This legislation would orphan millions of valuable copyrights that cannot otherwise be distinguished from true orphaned works – and that would open the door to commercial theft on an unprecedented scale.”

Strong testimony. So what happened? Did the bill improve?
No, Congress just agreed to exempt textiles from the bill.
So now Congress gets their endorsement.

Definition: When is cultural theft on an unprecedented scale not a problem?
Answer: When you’ve been cut out of the problem.

We hope legislators will judge the merit of such endorsements accordingly.

One last irony: the “strong testimony” quoted above was not original to the textile industry spokesperson. It was appropriated verbatim from Brad Holland’s 2006 Senate testimony and used without attribution or citation. You can read the original here: http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00203

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work
You can urge Congress to oppose these bills by linking here to a special letter.
Tell Your Senators and Representatives to Oppose the Orphan Works Act at:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11442621

Please forward this message in its entirety to every artist you know.

If you received this as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: ipa@twcny.rr.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-06-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

The Orphan Works Act: Warning to the Public

Should the general public care about the Orphan Works Act?
Yes, because the effects of this bill will expose any citizen's visual images to infringement, including infringement for commercial purposes or distasteful uses.

Most people don't understand current copyright law. But under current law, they don't have to - the law itself protects them from not understanding it. Anything you create is considered your private property.

But under this amendment, all citizens would be required to understand that they must now take active steps - not to actually protect their work (because registries won't protect it) – but merely to preserve their right to sue an infringer in federal court (in case they ever find out they've been infringed in the first place).

Otherwise, ignorance of copyright law will be be no excuse against an infringer who has done a "reasonably diligent search" for a photo he found on a blog, photo sharing site, Facebook page, or other source.

Proposal for Copyright Warning and Public Awareness Campaign
If this bill is passed, copyright will no longer be considered the exclusive right of the creator. Therefore, Congress should direct the Copyright Office to commence an awareness campaign to be conducted in all media, explaining to all copyright holders the new terms of copyright protection. Public warnings should state at least the following:

“Due to a change in US copyright law, citizens should now be aware that any creative expression they put into tangible form – from professional artwork to family photos - will be subject to infringement, including infringement for commercial uses, by anyone in the United States who is unable to locate them by what the infringer determines – and a court agrees - to be a reasonably diligent search.

“To preserve your right to sue infringers in federal court, you are advised to take active steps to assert authorship of every work you create.

“These steps will include inserting meta-data in each work, marking each work with a copyright symbol and contact information and registering each work in commercial databases where infringers can search for your work.

“Ignorance of copyright law will be be no excuse against an infringer who has done a “reasonably diligent search” according to guidelines established by Congress.”

This should be the minimum warning information and it should be issued to the public on an on-going basis to alert successive generations of the legal obligations they will have to observe as the price of creating art of any kind. We also ask Congress to direct the Copyright Office to establish and maintain local law clinics where creators and other citizens can seek clarification about their obligations under Orphan Works law.

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work

You can urge Congress to oppose these bills by linking here to a special letter.
Tell Your Senators and Representatives to Oppose the Orphan Works Act at:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11442621

Please forward this message to every artist you know.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: ipa@twcny.rr.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-06-04T07:39:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

JUNE 2, 2008 An Orphan Works Update
Backers of the House version of the Orphan Works bill are now asking artists and photographers to oppose the Senate bill unless it’s amended to contain at least the “minimum provisions” that appear in the House version.

Although they don’t say so, opposing the Senate bill in this manner is a vote FOR the House bill.

We’ve been asked to explain why:
The Senate bill is similar to the bill we opposed in 2006. The House bill (H.R. 5889) is the result of a year and a half of closed door negotiations between Congress and representatives and lobbyists for special interest groups. These groups have agreed to either endorse the House bill or remain neutral to insure its passage.

The House bill endorses the concept of coerced “voluntary” registration with commercial databases and seeks to make these databases infringer-friendly.

– It would require infringers to file a simple “notice of use” before they infringe.

– It calls for an archive of the notices to be maintained by the Copyright Office or an approved third party.

Why do backers of the House bill want these databases to be infringer-friendly?
Because to thrive, commercial databases (registries) will have to do a robust business in rights-clearing and orphan certification. That means encouraging infringers to infringe.

How will these registries work? No details have been given, but experience with image banks suggests the following:

For unregistered work: infringers will use the registries to identify pictures that aren’t registered. Infringers will probably pay the registry a search fee, then use or market the “orphans” like royalty-free art.

For registered work: the registries will act as a kind of stock house: Users will go to them for one-stop shopping to clear rights to your pictures. The registry will probably charge you a commission when they do.

In other words, urging Congress to pass the House bill makes very little sense to us unless your business or organization expects to become a commercial registry. We believe the only way to oppose these bills is to oppose them both.

If you agree, now’s the time to write Congress or write again.

You can urge Congress to oppose these bills by linking here to a special letter.
Tell Your Senators and Representatives to Oppose the Orphan Works Act at:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11442621

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work

Please forward this message to every artist you know.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: ipa@twcny.rr.com
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Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-05-20T05:33:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

Call to Action
Last Thursday the Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed their Orphan Works Act.
It is now headed for the full Senate.

If you’ve written before, now’s the time to write again.
Urge your senator to oppose this bill.

Because it has been negotiated behind closed doors, introduced on short notice and fast-tracked for imminent passage without open hearings, ask that this bill not be passed until it can be exposed to an open, informed and transparent public debate.

We’ve drafted a special letter for this purpose.
You can deep link to it here:
Contact your Senator in opposition to S.2913 NOW

The House Judiciary Committee is considering H.R. 5889, the companion bill now. Please write them again:
Contact your Congressman in opposition to H.R. 5889 NOW

2 minutes is all it takes to write your senator and representatives and fight for your copyrights. Over 68,000 e-mail messages have been sent so far.

Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work

Please forward this message to every artist you know.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: ipa@twcny.rr.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Just in from Illustrators Partnership

2008-05-13T00:10:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

Some backers of the controversial Orphan Works bill say they’re launching a campaign to “Rescue Orphan Works.”

From whom?

We’re not the ones interested in infringing other people’s copyrights.
We’re only interested in protecting our own.
If the “Rescue Orphan Works” folks really want to use only true orphaned work, they’d join us in asking that this bill be drafted accordingly.
From our written statement submitted to the Senate April 30, 2008 http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/ow_docs

We believe the orphan works problem can be and should be solved with carefully crafted, specific limited exemptions.

• An exemption could be tailored to solve family photo restoration and reproduction issues.

• Usage for genealogy research is probably already covered by fair use, but could rate an exemption if deemed necessary.

• Limited exemptions could be designed for documentary filmmakers.

• Libraries and archives already have generous exemptions for their missions. However, if they believe they need expanded access to work whose authors are hard to find, we’d suggest that Congress adopt a variant of the Orphan Works clearance system in use in Canada.

Canada has created a statutory licensing scheme that allows licenses for the use of published works to be issued by the Copyright Board of Canada on behalf of unlocatable copyright owners.

The license is issued by the Canadian Copyright Board. Decisions are made on a case-by- case basis through application to the Board. If the Board is satisfied by the applicant’s efforts of e-mails, phone calls, written correspondence, approaches to copyright collectives, Internet searches, etc., then it may issue a non-exclusive license which is valid only in Canada, subject to any terms and conditions it sees fit.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/ListArchives/0507/msg00096.html

A system such as this would serve potential users of orphaned work by allowing them to clear rights in an orderly, verified way. Therefore we respectfully ask that the Senate conduct further hearings to resolve the specific problem of providing public access to true orphaned works. Our objections to S.2913 – which incorporates the proposals made by the Copyright Office – is that its effects cannot be limited to old or abandoned copyrights.

There’s no need to “rescue orphan works” from artists.
And you don’t save orphans by making new ones!

Help solve the real orphan works problem: Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work

2 minutes is all it takes to write Congress and protect your copyright:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

Please forward this message to every artist you know.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Action form from Illustrators Partnership

2008-05-07T21:33:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Take Action: Don't Let Congress Orphan Our Work

We’ve set up an online site for visual artists to e-mail their Senators and Representatives with one click.

This site is open to professional artists, photographers and any member of the image-making public.

We’ve provided sample letters from individuals representing different sectors of the visual arts.

If you’re opposed to the Orphan Works act, this site is yours to use.

For international artists and our colleagues overseas, we’ve provided a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.

2 minutes is all it takes to write Congress and protect your copyright:

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

Please forward this message to every artist you know.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

2008-05-06T12:52:00.000-07:00

A Reminder:
Tonight, Tuesday, May 6 at 6:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time (U.S.)
Don’t Let Congress Orphan Your Work
An open forum to oppose the Orphan Works Act

The Society of Illustrators
128 East 63rd Street
New York, NY 10065
Admission will be free

Panelists:

Terry Brown Director, American Society of Illustrators Partnership, Director Emeritus, Society of Illustrators

Constance Evans Executive Director, Advertising Photographers of America, artist

Dr. Theodore Feder President, Artists Rights Society

Brad Holland Artist, Co-founder, Illustrators Partnership

Cynthia Turner Medical illustrator, Board Member, Illustrators Partnership

William Vasquez Photographer, Co-Chair, Advertising Photographers of America/NY Chapter

This event will be streamed live here: http://video.cmitnyc.com/society/soi_2008_05_06.html
If you unable to access it tonight, it will be archived for delayed webcast, starting tomorrow

Also: stay tuned for a link to our push-button letter-writing website: Take Action/ Write Congress
The link to this advocacy site will be emailed to you directly

Please forward or post this announcement in its entirety to any interested party.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Poverty Street

2008-05-03T00:28:00.000-07:00

I never really talked about this before, but as I sat on my balcony this morning drinking my coffee and watching a gas repair man leaving a building and getting on his bike, it occurred to me something I have discussed many times with other people, and especially other artists. That of the artist's worth.

I know I have mentioned my favourite artist many times in these blogs, but for the sake of repetition I will again; Van Gogh. In my mind he has come to typify what art and being an artist is about. I am not saying all artists should be driven to insanity, sleep with prostitutes and cut off one's ear in a pursuit to rack and ruin in a society that doesn't recognise one's skills and never making a penny doing so. What I do imply about Van Gogh, is the passion and willingness to fight, struggle and pursue his dream of this artistic passion. The motivation that made him create in such a hostile economic climate. The pure love he had for doing so. This is what an artist is, should be and must be. Van Gogh wasn't exceptional, but what he was, was an example to how to be driven as a creative person. Also he is a good example for the following blog.

Never, in my wildest dreams would I ever compare myself to Van Gogh. Who ever could? However, we all have passion and circumstance. Maybe in his day, getting patronage and support was easier. Maybe the standard of living and social lifestyle wasn't so vicious. One thing was for sure; Van Gogh didn't have a global arena in which to compete. What I mean about this is two fold: The view that many of the population has toward artists in this ever increasingly, money -grabbing world, and secondly, that of the internet.

Being good at something has a market value. That is for sure. Times that by the 6 billion people on this planet and that values is somewhat washed away. Not saying that all 6 billion of us are creative people, however there is a suppressive forced on the artist career path that has always been a stigma (especially in my life). Being a twin, I have always been compared to my younger brother. Twenty minutes not being a great deal of difference really. Maybe again, its the physical similarities of being identical, or something. I don't know. However, we were compared. The day came when as adults we had to make a choice to what we would do after school. We all do. My brother took the path towards job and money. Not a career, but a job. I, on the other hand took the (what I consider) the more difficult path of education. And especially more difficult path of being an art student. You maybe saying what am I gripping about? Well, even to this day, which surprises me, on the verge of my forty third birthday, I still get reminders from my mother asking "When am I going to get a proper job." This is something that has haunted me through the trial and tribulations of this chosen path, and brought me to this point in time; sitting looking at the gas repair man.

Some time back I realised that, whether it was my style, approach, marketing or whatever, I was not going to make it big as an artist (saying that Van Gogh only did after his death). Moving to Greece compounded that issue as there is less of a market for illustration and art, mainly as the population is a mere 10 million. This is when I realised that there is a double edged sword at play here. The element I mentioned previously about Van Gogh holds true, but at the same time releases a greater irony. Local economics can help if there is demand. If you are the only artist in a hundred miles and there is a need then you will make money. Here there is no great demand. There enters the double edged sword. You jump onto the communication form that holds a open path to good exposure; the internet. Why is this double edged? Well, I'm sure I am not (and I definitely am not) the only person who has thought of this. Selling yourself in a town of 1 million is one thing, if the number of artists is x10, but trying to sell yourself on a global network system that has a x1 million potential artists is another.

I recently joined several image banks and a online freelance service in order to find extra income. This is where the second edge comes into play. Fair enough, this is not a great way to make money and in some respects you are playing a betting game that someone will pay (over time) enough money for the value of the work you have done. What makes this a debatable subject is the worth that someone has. You may have seen a post I did some days back about a Greek doctor who flirted and ate food during an examination he gave me (I'll point out he wasn't flirting with me). Now, that doctor, due to his training, has earned himself a good salary. Regardless of his position or quality of service he commands a salary based on this training and skill. Now, as an artist, there is a level of training, skill and intuition involved in the work. I would even go as far as to say that there is a degree similarity in the education and professional approach that any other person would put into a career. Now, whether it is due to the nature of the form, the social view of the form or whether there is a belief that art is valueless unless in the Louvre, I don't know, but to this day the artist is still not given the same respect that any other professional is given. This has been heightened by the internet, as we see not only the presence of amateurs vying for commercial work, but also a competitive arena that allows low-economic countries to bid for work that high-economic country-based artists cannot compete with.

Compare yourself for example to two different job paths. That of the plumber (gas man), and that of a solicitor. Both (maybe argued) at different levels of the career spectrum, but both some how able to command fees that some may consider beyond the scope of their work and career level. Take the solicitor for example. You take them into your employ, for whatever reason. Instantly, if they phone you they bill you. If you ask them a question, it is credited to professional service and billed. All this on top of the fact they charge you extraordinary fees for being in their office and for doing the work for them. Granted, they have been through law school. Hopefully know what they are doing, but ultimately can ask for this money even if you don't get what you want. If you loose, which means you don't get the service you ask for, you still have to pay. Would you go into a store and buy a product, find it broken then get told; "Well you still have to pay and except it that way." No, you wouldn't. As an artist, or lets say designer, you are believed to not have to use any real skill in developing an idea. If you tell a client that you have to think of a good idea and that takes time and that it will cost, they tend to look at you like you are ripping them off. However, a picture doesn't just exude from our finger tips. It needs thought, development, and the like. So why don't artists charge by the hour? Why do our services tend to involve a costing for the final outcome rather than the process time? And why is worth based on what people tend to judge next to what they believe they could do, if they could be bothered to learn how to be an artist, rather than what the skill, time, dedication and originality is in the work involved. Many times I have been asked to draw something. A picture that, let's say, takes a week to do. Why do they believe that it should only be worth $100, as a finished piece instead of the 40 hours that it took. Now, if it was on the same level as a solicitor charging $100 per hour, that piece of work would be worth $4,000. Go figure. The arguments are that "it's easy to do", "anyone could do it", "it's only a picture", etc. Nobody ever realises the effort involved by the artist.

Back to the plumber (electrician, builder, etc) Now, we have all faced the fact that they come, they look and they quote. Many times you are left with a call out bill of £50 for them to say; "Can't fix it, love!" After a ten minute review of the problem. So I ask again, how is it that people who seem to give a service based in real-world involvement can command bills, fees and salaries out-stripping a service that (let's face it) has a great deal of skill, ability, time, effort and service involved in it?

Back to the internet. Now, I find myself, like many others having to sell my services (maybe like some cheap prostitute) for 25¢ per sale on images because there is not real market or appreciation for what the actual job I do entails. Now, with the introduction of the Orphans Work Bill there is a new threat to the fact that all rights over this commodity maybe lost and that I might as well give my work away for nothing. Can you imagine the twisted analogy that the gift has been turned into a curse. I have never thought that art (drawing, or whatever kind) is about talent. It is more to do with aptitude and effort and practice. But can you see that, after a life time of exertion in the field, you are told that your LIFE (as it is this what we talk of) is worth nothing. And on top of this, people are allowed to take this worthlessness and make money out of it, regardless of any remuneration on the artists part. Welcome to poverty street.

Taken from my original blog site here!

Special Event

2008-05-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

You are cordially invited to attend an important industry-wide event

Don’t Let Congress Orphan Your Work
An open forum to oppose the Orphan Works Act of 2008
Tuesday, May 6 6:00 PM
The Society of Illustrators
128 East 63rd Street
New York, NY 10065
Admission will be free

The Orphan Works Act of 2008 will endanger the rights of anyone who creates intellectual property.

It will expose your art to commercial infringement. It will include work from professional paintings to family snapshots. It will include published and unpublished work. It will include any image that resides or has ever resided on the internet. It will force you to register every picture you do with privately-held commercial registries. It will make all unregistered works potential orphans.

This radical change to U.S. copyright law will shift the burden of diligence from infringers to rights holders. It is wrong to give infringers the right to make money from your property without your knowledge or consent. You should not have to pay businessmen to keep the work you’ve created.

The Orphan Works Act is an assault on national and international copyright laws. It’s an assault on the property and privacy rights embodied in them.

Illustrators, photographers, fine artists: let’s come together and act to keep Congress from orphaning our work.

This event will be webcast live.
Panelists at this forum will include:

- Brad Holland Hall of Fame artist who has testified against the Orphan Works Act of 2006 in both the House and Senate
- Cynthia Turner Award-winning medical artist who has collaborated in written testimony to both the House and Senate
- Constance Evans Photographer, painter and Executive Director of Advertising Photographers of America
- Terry Brown Director Emeritus of the Society of Illustrators, currently Director of the American Society of Illustrators Partnership
- Others to be announced

To learn more about the Orphan Works Bill, listen to the interview with Brad Holland:

mp3 version: http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html
YouTube version: http://youtube.com/watch?v=CqBZd0cP5Yc

For additional background on Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Just in!!

2008-04-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

Both House and Senate versions of the Orphan Works Act of 2008 can be downloaded from the IPA homepage:

http://illustratorspartnership.org/

Many groups are coming together to oppose this bill. We’re preparing letters you can customize and send to your representatives through our push-button link. Please stay tuned and we’ll give you the tools we need to make our voices heard.

For additional background on Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Email just received from Illustrator's Partnership

2008-04-24T12:31:00.001-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

The Orphan Works Act of 2008 will be officially released momentarily.

The language in the draft confirms our warnings. If this bill passes, you’ll be forced to clear all your secondary licensing rights through at least two government certified databases – or risk orphaning your art.

Despite its masquerade as the "last resort" to search for a rights owner, these databases will likely become the only source many users will rely on for finding a rights owner. Reason: it will give users the legal right to infringe any copyright not in the databases.

We’re working with our attorney now to prepare opposition letters.

We have contracted CapWiz, a service that will allow you to send these letters to Congress with a push of the button.

CapWiz will also provide us with "digital stickers" that anyone else - organizations, individual artists, blogs, etc. - can put on their sites that create a direct link to the command center to write their Congressman and Senators to defeat this radical change to U.S. Copyright law

Please stay tuned and we’ll tell you in a day or so what you can do to register your opposition.

For additional background on Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Email from Illustrator's Partnership

2008-04-22T22:54:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

Today the House and Senate sent us draft copies of the new Orphan Works Act of 2008. They haven’t officially released it yet, but we’ve been told the Senate will do so this week. A quick analysis confirms our worst fears and our early warnings. If these proposals are enacted into law, all the work you have ever done or will do could be orphaned and exposed to commercial infringement from the moment you create it.

You’ve probably already heard Mark Simon’s webcast interview with Brad Holland. If not, please listen to it at:
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html.

Then forget the spin you’ve heard from backers of this bill. This radical proposal, now pending before Congress, could cost you your past and future copyrights.

The Illustrators’ Partnership is currently working with our attorney - in concert with the other 12 groups in the American Society of Illustrators Partnership to have our voices – and yours - heard in Congress. We’ll keep you posted regarding how you can do your part.

Please forward this information to every creative person and group you know. Mr. Holland and Mr. Simon have given their permission for this audio file to be copied and transferred and replayed.

For additional information about Orphan Works developments, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Email received fro Illustrator's Partnership

2008-04-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: No Myth

We’ve seen “Six Misconceptions About Orphan Works” circulating on the Internet. It’s a well-reasoned piece, but has one problem. The author cites current copyright law to “debunk” concerns about an amendment that would change the law she cites.

How would the proposed amendment change the law? We’ll get to that and other questions in a minute. But first, let’s answer the broader charge that news of an Orphan Works bill is just “an internet myth.”

Q: There is no Orphan Works bill before Congress – one was introduced in 2006, but it was never voted on.
A: Correct. The last bill died in Congress because of intense opposition from illustrators, photographers, fine artists, and textile designers. The Illustrators' Partnership testified against it in both the House and Senate. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00203

Q: So if the bill is dead, why warn everybody about it now?
A: Because a new bill is due out momentarily. According to Andrew Noyes of the National Journal:

“Legislation aimed at reworking a portion of U.S. copyright law dealing with ‘orphan works’... will likely be a priority for the panel headed by House Judiciary Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Howard Berman, D-Calif., in the spring...

“American Library Association copyright specialist Carrie Russell said her members are ‘excited about having orphan works legislation’ move this session,’” adding: “the House effort is ‘so close to being a done deal that we're on the edge of our seats.’" -Intellectual Property -Progress Seen on Developing 'Orphan Works' Legislation, by Andrew Noyes © National Journal Group, Inc. 02-21-2008

Q: But if there isn’t a new bill yet, how can we know what’s going to be in it?
A: Our information indicates the new bill will be basically the same as the old one. According to the Copyright Clearance Center:
“Subcommittee chairman Howard Berman made it quite clear that he intends to introduce new orphan works legislation shortly... It is likely the new bill will look very similar to The Orphan Works Act of 2006.”http://oncopyright.copyright.com/2008/03/17/orphan-works-are-back-on-congress%e2%80%99s-radar-screen/

Q: But if it’s due out shortly, why not wait until it’s been introduced before we oppose it?
A: To quote from the Copyright Clearance Center:
“Since this is an election year, and re-election campaigns will be in full swing by late summer, new orphan works legislation will probably be fast-tracked to reach the floor of the House by mid-May”. http://oncopyright.copyright.com/2008/03/17/orphan-works-are-back-on-congress%e2%80%99s-radar-screen/
Since that would give us only a month to notify artists, we decided to start now.

Q: Do we have any direct corroboration for these press reports?
A: Since the last bill died, we’ve met with:

- Chairman Berman
- Attorneys from the Copyright Office
- Representatives of the House and Senate Subcommittees
- A lobbyist for Getty and Corbis. (Getty and Corbis oppose the bill, but are negotiating for favorable concessions.)

Q: Where did we get the idea that the Copyright Office wants to impose for-profit registries?
A: That proposal has been there from the beginning. Two examples (with emphasis added), the first from page 106 of the Copyright Office’s 2006 Orphan Works Report:

“[W]e believe that registries are critically important, if not indispensable, to addressing the orphan works problem...It is our view that such registries are better developed in the private sector..." http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf

And on January 29 2007, twenty visual arts groups met in Washington D.C. with attorneys from the Copyright Office. The attorneys stated that the Copyright Office would not create these “indispensable” registries because it would be “too expensive.” So I asked the Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs:

Holland: If a user can’t find a registered work at the Copyright Office, hasn’t the Copyright Office facilitated the creation of an orphaned work?
Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries.
Holland: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register?
Carson: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest!
- From my notes of the meeting

This exchange suggests that if Copyright Office proposals become law:

- Unregistered work will be considered a potential orphan from the moment you create it.
- In the U.S., copyright will no longer be the exclusive right of the copyright holder.

Q: What does it mean to say your copyright is an “exclusive right”?
A: Under existing law, “[a] copyright gives the owner the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, display, or license his work…Under current law, works are covered whether or not a copyright notice is attached and whether or not the work is registered (emphasis added).”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Copyright#copyright:_an_overview

Q: Why does this exclusive right matter?
A: Two big reasons:

- Creative control and ownership: No one can use or change your work without your permission.
- Value: In the marketplace the ability to sell exclusive rights to a client triples the value of your work.

Q: So how would the Orphan Works proposals endanger that right?
A: It would allow anyone who can’t find you (or who removes your name from your work and says he can’t) to infringe your work. Since infringements can occur anytime, anywhere in the world, they could be countless but you might never find them.

Q: So?
A: So:
- Under this bill, you would never again be able to assure a client that your work hasn’t been – or won’t be – infringed. Therefore
- You would never again be able to guarantee a client an exclusive right to license your work. This means
- Your entire inventory of work would be devalued by at least 2/3 from the moment this bill is signed into law.

Q: But the “orphan works problem” isn't just something dreamed up by evil corporations to steal your vacation photographs. It's an actual problem faced by academics, librarians, and others.
A: In drafting the 1976 Copyright Act, Congress weighed the issue of older works whose owners can’t be located. They concluded that the problem it created for users was outweighed by the benefits of harmonizing U.S. copyright law with international copyright law.

“A point that has concerned some educational groups arose from the possibility that, since a large majority (now about 85 percent) of all copyrighted works are not renewed, a life-plus-50 year term would tie up a substantial body of material that is probably of no commercial interest but that would be more readily available for scholarly use if free of copyright restrictions...

“[I]t is important to realize that the [1976] bill would not restrain scholars from using any work as source material or from making ‘fair use’ of it; the restrictions would extend only to the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copies of the work, its public performance, or some other use that would actually infringe the copyright owner’s exclusive rights (emphasis added).” SOURCE: H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, at 136 (1976) - Quoted on pages 15 –16 and 41 - 44 of the 2006 Orphan Works Report http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf

Q: But the backers of the Orphan Works bill say it would merely amend the law to solve the problem of old work whose owners can’t be found.
A: It would solve the problem alright! But it would do so by making a potential orphan of any work by any artist, living or dead. This would be like trying to solve the crime problem by making everything legal.

Q: How would it orphan “any work by any artist, living or dead”?
A: As we testified before the Senate subcommittee in 2006: “The inability to distinguish between abandoned copyrights and those whose owners are simply hard to find is the Catch 22 of the Orphan Works project.

“Put simply, if a picture is unmarked, it’s impossible to source or date it. Therefore this amendment would orphan millions of valuable copyrights that cannot otherwise be distinguished from true orphaned works - and that would open the door to cultural theft on an unprecedented scale.” http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00203

Q: But the Copyright Office says the infringer would first have to make a “reasonably diligent search” to find the copyright holder.
A: Yes, but last time, this opened a Pandora’s Box of problems. No one was able to draft a foolproof definition of a “reasonably diligent search” (remember that the infringer would have a serious financial incentive not to find you). So the Copyright Office proposed registries.

Q: Why registries?
A: Because a search of registries would allow the infringer to legally claim he had made a “reasonably diligent search.”

Q: And the problem with that is?
A: You can’t find a picture in a registry if it’s not there. Any picture – published or unpublished, professional or personal – that hasn’t been registered could therefore be orphaned by a successful orphan works defense - even if the artist was alive and otherwise managing his copyrights.

Q: But if you do become aware of an infringement, you can always claim a “reasonable fee” from the user.
A: Another Pandora’s Box because:

- Infringements can occur anytime anywhere in the world; therefore
- You would have to search every publication, every website, everywhere - on a regular basis - to see if anything you’ve ever done has been infringed.
- This would be an impossible task - but
- Even if you did find an infringement, you’d still have to
- Locate the infringer and get him to respond; and
- While the infringer would only have to make a “reasonably diligent search” to find you,
-You would have to make an absolutely successful search to find him.
- Then, if you were able to track him down and get him to respond, you’d have to
- Settle for whatever he was willing or able to pay you; or
- Take him to Federal Court; but remember
- If the court accepts the infringer’s claim that he made a reasonably diligent effort to find you,
- You’d get no more than what he was willing or able to pay you in the first place; but
-You’d be out-of-pocket for legal expenses; and
- There’d be no limit to the amount of damages and legal fees the infringer could get from you in a countersuit.

Q: But what if you do sue an infringer and win? Then can’t the court award you full costs, including a reasonable attorney’s fee?
A: In theory, yes. But here’s how a full-time litigator, advising us in 2006, said it would happen in real life:

“Under current law, infringement cases follow two scenarios:

“Scenario One: If a copyright owner has registered his copyright, he can get statutory damages and attorneys fees. As a result, it is relatively easy to find a contingency fee lawyer to take these cases. (That’s because the copyright owner doesn't have to pay the lawyer; the infringer does). In addition, the copyright owner usually finds that he gets more in settlement than he pays in legal fees, if he decides to hire an hourly-rate lawyer.

“Scenario Two: If a copyright owner has NOT registered his copyright, he can only get actual damages. In these cases, it is usually impossible to find a contingency fee lawyer [because in these cases, the copyright owner will have to pay - and may not be able to]. Moreover, it is often not wise for the copyright owner to litigate these cases anyway, because the settlement value is so small.

“Under the orphan works legislation, ALL infringement scenarios are, as a practical matter, Scenario Two.”

Q: But the Copyright Office says that infringers who act in good faith need “certainty” that they won’t be penalized for using an “orphaned” work:

“Most [commenters to the Orphan Works Study] agreed that statutory damages and attorneys fees should not be available [to copyright owners] because those remedies create the most uncertainty in the minds of users (emphasis added).” - Page 7/Orphan Works Report http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf

A: Maybe so, but under this bill
-You would never have certainty because you’d never know if, when or where your work has been infringed.
- Yet the infringer would be guaranteed the kind of certainty the law would deny you.

Q: The Copyright Office says that user certainty is “essential to encouraging the use of the [orphaned] work.” -Page 7/Orphan Works Report
A: The issue of certainty for the user/infringer is the lynchpin of the whole Orphan Works issue, so let’s take it step-by-step:

1. Congress can’t pass a law to make you register your work or put copyright symbols on it because these formalities would violate the obligations and commitments of the United States under the international Berne Copyright Convention:

Berne/Article 5(2) “The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality (emphasis added).” http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/5.html

2. So because Congress can’t impose formalities on you, the Copyright Office crafted a recommendation that would expose your work to infringement if you didn’t impose formalities on yourself.

3. They say this “limitation on remedies” is necessary to guarantee “certainty” to the good faith infringer of your work.

4. But uncertainty is the only mechanism the law gives you to protect your work from thieves.

5. There is no Copyright Bureau of Investigation; no Copyright Police Force.

6. You are responsible for policing your own copyrights – and penalties for infringement are the only weapon the law gives you.

7. Fact: most creative work is never registered with the Copyright Office and most infringers know it. So

8. If an infringer wants to rip off your work, he can guess that a.) you may never find out about it; and b.) it probably wasn’t registered anyway.

9. He may guess correctly but – he can’t be sure – and this uncertainty is your key safeguard against unjust infringement, because

10. If an bad actor guesses wrong, he’ll be liable under current law for statutory damages of up to $150,000 per infringement, plus attorneys fees.

11. This is a powerful incentive for a thief not to risk stealing our work.

12. So it turns out that in the real world, uncertainty in the mind of a bad actor is the only weapon you have to protect your copyright. Remove that uncertainty and you remove the only realistic safeguard the law provides.

Let’s say that again: Without uncertainty, thieves can reasonably gamble that their thefts may never be detected, the work they steal won’t be registered, the owners of the stolen property will never find them and – if once in a while they do get caught – they can simply say the property had no name on it when they found it and dare you to sue them. From that point on, the risk will be all yours.

The Dog that Didn’t Bark In 2006, visual artists banded together and flooded Congressional offices with faxes protesting the harm the Orphan Works Act would do to professional artists.

Lost in the swamp of debate over “reasonable searches” and “reasonable fees,” no one stopped to think that the bill had been written so broadly that the inclusion of unpublished work would expose even personal and private work - such as sketches, diaries, family photos, home videos, etc. to infringement. This issue was the dog that didn’t bark. The January 29 2007 exchange with the attorney from the Copyright Office finally woke the dog:

Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries.
Holland: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register?
Carson: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest!

This radical expansion of the public domain makes this legislation much more than an issue of copyright infringement. Its unintended consequences would amount to a violation of private property and potentially, of privacy itself.

In a 2005 paper submitted to the Copyright Office, legal scholars Jane Ginsburg and Paul Goldstein warned that Orphan Works legislation must precisely define the scope of its mandate or fail to uphold our country’s commitment to international law and copyright-related treaties:

“[T]he diversity of [orphan works] responses highlights the fundamental importance of precisely defining the category of ‘orphan’ works. The broader the category, or the lower the bar to making the requisite showing of due diligence, the greater the risk of inconsistency with our international obligations to uphold authors’ exclusive rights under copyright. Compliance with Berne/TRIPs is required by more than punctilio; these rules embody an international consensus of national norms that in turn rest on long experience with balancing the rights of authors and their various beneficiaries, and the public. Thus, in urging compliance with these technical-appearing rules, we are also urging compliance with longstanding practices that have passed the test of time (emphasis added).” -Item 1/page 1 Orphan Works Reply Comments http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/comments/reply/OWR0107-Ginsburg-Goldstein.pdf

It may sound absurd to argue that the unintended consequences of this legislation will raise privacy issues. But the absurdity arises from the Copyright Office’s inversion of basic copyright law. On page 14 of the Orphan Works Report, the authors write:

“If our recommendation resolves users’ concerns in a satisfactory way, it will likely be a comprehensive solution to the orphan works situation (emphasis added).” http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf

Yet any law that permits users to commercialize the private property of others cannot be “comprehensive” if it “prejudices the legitimate interests of the copyright holders.” See Article 13/The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/t_agm3_e.htm#1

This includes unpublished work and personal expressions as well as works intended for commercial use. Authors’ rights are exclusive. Public interest cannot compel anyone – artist or private citizen – to publish his or her work. So by what right of eminent domain can Congress assert a sweeping right to let others publish it for them?

The Copyright Office has stated that they’ll regard their recommendation as “satisfactory” if it makes millions of copyrights, no matter how valuable, available to users, no matter how worthy, under a system that would introduce permanent uncertainty into the markets of professional creators and into the lives of ordinary citizens. By placing the wants of users over the rights of rightsholders, the Copyright Office would invert the simple logic of copyright law, which in 2006, one artist expressed very clearly this way:

"If you find a creative work, you may not know who created it, but you know you didn’t.”

Despite 127 pages of the Orphan Works Report, you need only common sense to tell you this: The primary goal of copyright law is not to make creators’ work available to others. If it were, there’d be no need for copyright law at all: everything would be free for anyone to use. Copyright law exists primarily to protect the property rights of creators and secondarily, to extend the benefits of the creator’s work to the public. It does this by defining specific, limited exceptions to the creator’s exclusive license. In doing so, the law promotes the useful arts and provides certainty to users and creators alike. Invert the law and you invert the only way it can benefit society.

- Brad Holland © 2008 with additional research by Cynthia Turner, for the Illustrators’ Partnership

The author has given his permission to post or forward this article in its entirety to any interested party

Brad Holland is a self-taught artist and writer whose work has appeared in Time, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, the New York Times and other publications. He is a member of the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame. His satire on the art business,”Express Yourself, It’s Later Than You Think” was first published in The Atlantic Monthly www.newyorkartworld.com/commentary/holland.html “First Things About Secondary Rights” appeared in The Columbia Journal of Law and the Arts, published by the Columbia University School of Law

weblog.ipcentral.info/holland_ColumbiaLaw.pdf

Cynthia Turner is a certified medical illustrator and a Fellow of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI). She is a founding member and Board member of the Illustrators’ Partnership of America, and a member of the Society of Illustrators. She creates original illustrations for medical publishers, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms and their agencies.

For additional background on Orphan Works, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Email just received from Illustrator's Partnership

2008-04-15T21:36:00.000-07:00

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

In the last few days, over one thousand people have asked to be added to the Illustrators’ Partnership e-mail list. New names keep coming in by the hour. Since you’re new to these postings, let’s tell you who we are.

The Illustrators’ Partnership of America (IPA) is a group of working artists who have banded together as a sort of neighborhood watch group. We’ve united other groups representing medical illustrators, architectural illustrators, general science illustrators and cartoonists. To oppose the Orphan Works bill, we’ve teamed up with fine artists, photographers, graphic designers and textile designers.

We first warned about this legislation in March 2002 when it was just a gleam in the eyes of some activist legal scholars. In 2004 we published The Copy Left Is Not Right and set up a mass e-mail list to start alerting our colleagues to coming developments. These articles are now archived on the IPA Orphan Works Resource page: http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

Over the coming days, we’ll tell you what we’re doing to oppose this bill and what you can do to work with us.

For the moment, we’re not advising you to write Congress. You can – and it may do some good – but it’s best to wait until the new bill has been introduced and given a number. Then we’ll have to act fast. Its advocates will try to pass it quickly.

So what can you do now? Help us spread the word. In doing so, please don’t overstate the danger; this bill is bad enough. Wherever possible, back up assertions with facts – quotes from sources, citations, links. Our arguments have to be clear, accurate and respectful of the opinions of those on the other side.

We have a modest war chest, but great legal representation. We’re meeting now with members of Congress and we’ll work hard to make them see how this wrong-headed and poorly thought-out bill will harm the cause of creativity. We’ll follow this e-mail with another one shortly - addressing the issues others have raised about our recent interview.

Welcome to our e-mail group.

— Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership

Cynthia Turner is a certified medical illustrator and a Fellow of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI). She is a founding member and Board member of the Illustrators’ Partnership of America, and a member of the Society of Illustrators. She creates original illustrations describing pathophysiological cascades, drug actions, and medical devices for medical publishers, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms and their agencies.

Brad Holland is a self taught artist and writer. His work has appeared in Time, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and other publications. He has painted CD covers for Ray Charles, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Billy Joel. The Washington Post has called him “an undisputed star of American Illustration," and the editors of RSVP, the artists' directory, voted him “the one artist, who in our opinion, has had the single greatest impact on the illustration field during the last twenty five years.” Brad Holland is a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale, a co-founder of the Illustrators’ Partnership and a member of the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame.

Please post or forward this email in its entirety to any interested party

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com
Place "Add Name" in the subject line. If you wish our mail sent to an address other than the one you mailed us from, provide the name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Another blog with interesting information

2008-04-15T04:19:00.000-07:00

Follow the link below to get some extra information about how things have been misleading and how things are changed.

Blog Link

Online Petition through Deviant

2008-04-13T09:01:00.000-07:00

In my search for the truth, I came across an online petition. It is through the website of DeviantArt. It has over 6,000+ signatures at present and here is their cover statement on the petition:

To: United States Congress
The U.S. Copyright Office issued its report on Orphan Works only a couple of weeks ago. The end of that report contained proposed language for an amendment to the Copyright Act. That proposal is now being fast-tracked in Washington with a good chance of passage before the end of this Session. In my opinion, if that language is enacted in its current form, it will be the worst thing that has happened to independent photographers and other independent visual artists since Work Made for Hire contracts.

The Orphaned work legislation GREATLY affects artists and creative professionals, and should be taken seriously. We sign to have our voice heard, and to show congress that we will NOT let this bill pass.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Please sign the link on the right if you feel that you need to do something. It can only help.
Thanks

Introduction

2008-04-13T03:02:00.000-07:00

Hello fellow artists and creatives,

This is a blog I have set up to help people discuss and inform, and if want complain about the proposed new law being brought in by the US government. The idea in basic form will allow the productive and creative work of all people to fall into the public domain. This basically means that anything! That means ANYTHING, that was generated by you. A doodle, sketch, a draft of a song on a scrap piece of paper, a beer mat with a new product idea on it, through to major works of art, will be the property of the Public Domain. This means, basically, that anyone can use them and not pay for them. The way around this ludicrous law is to register each and every single piece of work (finished or unfinished, rough or doodle) at a registry. Each piece will cost to be registered and all pieces not registered will be open for use (or stealing). Now, not only is that wrong, but to make things worse, you have to register your work at as many registries as possible in order to avoid the possible minimal search by a user of your work, who may argue they searched one registry and therefore couldn't find it, so thought it was free.

The law is very complex in explanation. To complex to add to a post here.

I have made a FaceBook group to help get numbers together. This can be found here!

You will find links to sites and information there, that in time I will populate here too. The main important thing to do however, is to read this article, and to distribute it to as many fellow creatives as possible. Join the group as well, and also join blogger as a member if only to let me add you to the admins here and to aid in the discussion and control of this site. All you need is a google account (bit ironic really, as Google is one companies wanting to exploit the bill). I hope you will join and help fight this. It is an important issue. So important in fact, if you are a creative, that it could change your life drastically!! So read on and help!!