Kill Bill
By admin on Apr 25, 2008 in - Your Biz Success -
I wish Uma Thurman and her Kill Bill action moves could help us out here–here’s more on the Orphan Works copyright bill. I learned that the Orphaned Works Bill was originally dropped in 2006 (thx for letting me know, Helena), but now it is being pushed again. Quietly.
I can’t for the life of me understand why anyone in his right mind would want to agree to this madness–unless, of course, he has a direct investment in one of the independent, private copyright registries….makes you really wonder about the sanity and integrity of some of those “in charge,” doesn’t it?
This is really a very big deal, and needs to be resolved now and forever, unless every last thing we write, draw, paint, carve, play or act be doomed to public domain.
What does that mean for you, the author, artist, performer? It means that any one can come along and snag your work and sell it and not pay you one red cent. You get nothing. Nada, zilch, zero, squat. Bummer.
Below is an excerpt from an article I read on an absolutearts.com artist’s website. READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE
And here is the excerpt: The Copyright Registration Paradox: By conceding that their proposals would make potential orphans of any unregistered works, the Copyright Office proposals would lead to a registration paradox: In order to “protect” work from exposure to infringement, creators would have to expose it on a publicly searchable registry. This would:
— Expose creative work to plagiarists and derivative abusers;
— Expose trade secrets and unused sketches to competitors;
— Expose unpublished and private correspondence to the public on the Orwellian premise that you must expose it to “protect” it.
Yet registries will not be able to monitor infringements nor enforce copyright compliance. Even after you’ve shelled out “protection money” to a commercial registry to register hundreds of thousands of works, you still won’t be protected. A registry would do nothing more than give you a piece of paper.
You would still have to monitor infringements – which can occur anytime anywhere in the world; then embark on an uncertain quest to find the infringer, file a case in Federal court, then prove that the infringer has removed your name or other identifying information from your work.
Meanwhile all the infringer will have to do is say there was no such information on the work when he found it and assert an orphan works defense. This will be the end result of trying to “resolve the users’ concerns” at the expense of time-tested copyright law.
Coerced registration violates the spirit and letter of international copyright law and copyright-related treaties.
And because this bill would effectively eliminate the passive copyright protection afforded personal correspondence, family photos, etc. it would tear one more slender thread of privacy protection from the fabric of fundamental rights we currently take for granted.
We…look forward to working with the subcommittee to address our concerns. READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE
– Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for The Illustrators’ Partnership of America
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