Apr. 12th, 2008

Bad Wolf

Apr. 12th, 2008 10:04 am
bluejeans07: (Q.I.- The Plague)
This is a message to not just artists but to anyone who posts images on the internet, whether it be fan art or photographs.

"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."

"Currently, you don't have to register your artwork to own the copyright. You own a copyright as soon as you create something. International law also supports this. Right now, registration allows you to sue for damages, in addition to fair value.

What makes me so MAD about this new legislation is that it legalizes THEFT! The only people who benefit from this are those who want to make use of our creative works without paying for them and large companies who will run the new private copyright registries.

These registries are companies that you would be forced to pay in order to register every single image, photo, sketch or creative work.

It is currently against international law to coerce people to register their work for copyright because there are so many inherent problems with it. But because big business can push through laws in the United States, our country is about to break with the rest of the world, again, and take your rights away.

With the tens of millions of photos and pieces of artwork created each year, the bounty for forcing everyone to pay a registration fee would be enormous. We lose our rights and our creations, and someone else makes money at our expense.

This includes every sketch, painting, photo, sculpture, drawing, video, song and every other type of creative endeavor. All of it is at risk!

If the Orphan Works legislation passes, you and I and all creatives will lose virtually all the rights to not only our future work but to everything we've created over the past 34 years, unless we register it with the new, untested and privately run (by the friends and cronies of the U.S. government) registries. Even then, there is no guarantee that someone wishing to steal your personal creations won't successfully call your work an orphan work, and then legally use it for free.

In short, if Congress passes this law, YOU WILL LOSE THE RIGHT TO MAKE MONEY FROM YOUR OWN CREATIONS!"

"With the pending Orphan Works legislation, artists might lose rights to works they've created. Courtesy of Jon Hofferman.

Two proponents of this new legislation are Corbis and Getty Images. They are large stock photo and stock art companies. They sell art and photos inexpensively and are trying to build giant royalty-free databases. Do you see how they could benefit from considering most works of art in the world orphans?

Do you know who owns Corbis? Bill Gates. He doesn't do anything unless it can make a huge amount of money. Helping you lose the copyright to your art is big business for Gates."

"Photos on the internet could be orphaned. With tens of millions of photos shared online with services like Flickr, Shutterfly and Snapfish, there is a huge opportunity for unauthorized use of your photos... legally.

You could see photos you take of your family and kids, or of a family vacation, used in a magazine or newspaper without your permission or payment to you. You would have to pay to register your photos, all of them, in every new registry in order to protect them. Say the average person takes 300 photos per year (I take a lot more than that). If a registry only charges $5 per image, that is a whopping $1,500 to protect your photos that are protected automatically under the current laws. If there are three registries, protecting your images could cost an amazing $4,500. Not to mention the time it would take to register every photo you take. Plus, you will also have to place your copyright sign on every photo.

That's not including all your art, sketches, paintings, 3D models, animations, etc. Do you really have all that extra time and money? Plus, even 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.

It gets even better. 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.

That means you will also have to look through every image in every registry all the time to make sure someone is not stealing and registering your art. You could actually end up illegally using your own artwork if someone else registers it. DOES ANYONE SEE A PROBLEM WITH THIS?"


Please read the rest of the article here: http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3605&page=1
bluejeans07: (Reach)
I've never been to a funeral before and this one was slightly atypical. For one thing, the girl who has passed away was a childhood friend, we played together in kindergarten and first grade, but we went our separate paths after that. I'd see her around in middle school and high school but we never had the same classes and we hung with different people. When I think of her, I still remember her as a little girl with crimped hair and a polka dot black and blue dress, and sometimes I see glimpses of the teenager she was with long black hair, big hoop earrings and thick eyeliner. She djed and loved music and she was a cheerleader, while I watched anime obsessively, formed a club around it, and pretty much the Queen of Nerd Town. I was the only one from the "nerd group" to go to her funeral... and it was so odd because all those feelings from high school came back. I saw the girls and the guys who... well, weren't my friends but we knew each other. They all remembered me and there were many hugs and tears shed. When we were asked to share a memory, I did stand up and recite how I remembered exactly what Sheryl was wearing when she came to my birthday party when I was in the first grade, how we never really remained friends but saw each other around and how different we both became.

I think this whole experience was harder on my mother than it was on me. She went with me to the Sheryl's funeral and she cried when the family spoke... it's a lot more about how Sheryl was the same age as me, and I think it's really struck her on the possibility of outliving one's child...

Emotionally, I'm exhausted. Last Saturday, I was around people who cried out of happiness because two wonderful people were joined for life. This Saturday, I was around people who cried out of sadness because a wonderful life was cut short.

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