Orphan Bill

[Spikester]

www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

oh my god...... this is absolute bullshit......... they are trying to legalizing art thief.......

For those of you all who doesn't get what this might say:

Congress is trying to pass a law that basically turns all non-registered artwork into Orphaned Work.

Copyright is what keeps our work from being taken from us, and being claimed in others names.

An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration. In the same way that an orphaned child loses the protection of his or her parents, your creative work can become an orphan for others to use without your permission.

In short, this law will remove present copyright laws so that you do not own ANY of the artwork you create unless you PAY to copyright it... So any work you've created and haven't registered can be claimed and registered by ANYONE else. THEY'RE LEGALIZING THEFT!

this is absolute bullshit. this can even effect us rpers! someone can come here and steal our characters for a story and claim they made it!

It can even effect story makers! it mostly effects art workers!

[Ninmast]

These registries (we don't know the number of them or the price yet because they don't even exist yet) will be owned by the private sector, and all an infringer has to do is make a "reasonable attempt" to check through the registries, so unless you go through and make sure you register with ALL of them, it's a cakewalk for them to make off with it. So you have to monitor the world over for all of your works to make sure they're not used, then track down the person that did it.

Even foreign nations are incensed about this because there is an INTERNATIONAL law against any country requiring a registry, but our government is saying, "Well, we're not actually REQUIRING it, we're just not giving them any rights if they don't."

[Spikester]

it just seems ridiculus. everyone at deviantart.com is all pissed about it.

[Ninmast]

And they should be. But we really can't be sending in letters until they have a number to refer to the bill as.

[Spikester]

this is true, but they are already starting a group for when this bill gets a number

[Ninmast]

Yes, but what are the odds that the amount of money they'll be getting will outweigh their interest in doing what we want?

[Spikester]

highly in their favor if they are thinking of doing it, i'd have to say

[LotusBlackfire]

Recently they gave an update on their so called definition for orphaned work, *probably due to the protest* basically now their saying that an orphaned work is one that was made by a creator that was unknown or passed away and has no owner currently, sounds like their just trying to hide what they did now

[Kainus Maximus]

Or clarifying so that theft doesnt occur and causes chaos. I'm pretty sure the definition of Orphaned works, not just online art, has been established some time ago.

Remember when in Greece (I thought it was Greece) Video Games were against the law and banned for a couple weeks? Same situation, only it hasnt passed. There was also a minor panic over the internet at one point when people thought AOL was going to start stealing their ideas over AIM, though that wasnt the case.

Just because some person with half a brain presents something does not mean that it wont change, or simply be denied. There is far too much panic for something so distant. Just Relax and see what happens first.

[Ninmast]

The problem with that, Kainus, is that they're already in the process of writing it, and Corvus, Getti and Google are all in there trying to get it written the way they want it so they can make off with the works. If this was just some little rumor, it'd be one thing, but they're actually in the process of writing it into a bill and want to get it written and passed in just a few months.

[Kainus Maximus]

Alright, my mistake then, and allow me to stress other points of my posts, specifically first and second paragraphs, as those seem more related than the third one, as well as add this point.

Even IF, IF worse comes to worse, people are not simply going to just lift things off the net and use them in their works, they have to try and make some form of contact with the owner. Failing to do so is theft, and still not legal. As you pointed out, people are very capable stealing work off the net and such and claiming it as their own, copyright or not but you may never know about it in the process.

I'm not saying this is not an offensive issue, but chances are... you'll never know what's going to happen to your art in the first place, copyrighted or not. Your work could have already been stolen renamed and such, and is currently huge in Chile or Blugaria.

I'm very curious to see how this plays out, but I'm positive it will not turn out as bad as it seems, such things rarely do.

[Kagetsuki]

Since dA was so infuriated about this yesterday, I had about 100 journal notices screeching about the bill. There was one I read that was particularly enlightening, and I feel like sharing it here...Dunno if it will be useful, but I thought it was a very level-headed analysis of the issue.

alexiuss.deviantart.com/journal/17814653/#journal

Enjoy.

[The Silent Orator]

Imagine. All those pictures on DA that are up for prints to be sold can just be taken.

Oh, and it's not just art from what I hear. It's music and writing too.

*looks guiltily at his musician MySpace*

They pass this, and I'm removing all my music compositions from there.

EDIT: Normally, I wouldn't be worried about something like this, but there are some REALLY thick people in congress (as well as people in congress who are corrupt and led by business corporations... but I won't get into that and the neocon/M.I.C. theory).

I'm sure the internet is a bunch of tubes.