Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/no-to-orphan-works-act.html ----------
taken from zemotion.deviantart.com
This is the link that I was shown to:
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html If you're too lazy to listen to that long long audio or read the texts, just a short summary of what I jotted down, more or less quoting directly from the audio:
- Current copyright law: Anything you create is protected by copyright from the moment its created.
- Under Orphan Works legislation: Nothing you create will be copyrighted unless you register it with commercial registries (which do not exist yet, and there will be more than one and it doesn't seem like there's a cap to how many the country is allowing them to sprout. I have the impression they work like image banks, just that now it will freaking own every single soul on this planet instead of you making the choice to sell stock images).
- Those which have been registered under the copyright office, are required to re-register with the new registries, yes, everything.
- We have to pay to own our own works unless you don't mind creating something and having somebody taking it and infringing it.
- The bill was started by 8 law students and a law professor Peter Jaszi, he wants to overthrow the idea of authorship, because individuals are small and creations by them should be owned by the public because they're influenced by the public. Tell me my eyes weren't the only pair that rolled at this point of time.
- If you do register, the people stealing your work can still claim it was orphaned and unless you fight them, they win. Even if you win, you may not make back your legal fees.
Anyone can submit images, including your images. They would then be excused from any liability for infringement (also known as THEFT) unless the legitimate rights owner (you) responds within a certain period of time to grant or deny permission to use your work.
Feel free to link to this entry or any of the links here, I am sure everyone want the words passed around. If people aren't going to do anything at least they should be aware of it. I will update this entry if there is something new.
Links:
Seemingly current situation according to what =cypherx found:
http://www.asmp.org/news/spec2008/orphan_update.php The date is almost a couple weeks before this audio interview was conducted, so hmm I don't know. But in any case:
"Uses by individuals for non-revenue producing personal or community purposes, including uses on websites that do not generate revenues for the individuals using the Orphan Works", doesn't this go back to the original circle that, people can just take an image for whatever use they want and still claim it their works if it's for their "portfolio" and others can later take these works which are probably Orphaned Works and you probably still hold no rights over anything?
Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/no-to-orphan-works-act.html Write to the government:
http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml =cypherx's entry on it:
http://cypherx.deviantart.com/journal/17806625/