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Mind Your Business: You Will Lose All the Rights to Your Own Art

Mark Simon is mad as hell and, in this month's "Mind Your Business," he tells you why you should be too.
By Mark Simon | Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 12:00 am
Posted In | Magazines: AnimationWorld
Brad Holland of the Illustrators' Partnership.
Brad Holland of the Illustrators' Partnership

Brad 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?

David O. Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries.

BH: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register?

DOC: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest!

This cavalier and disrespectful dialogue should have you seeing red. Who the hell does he think he is? Carson should be fired and RUN OUT OF WASHINGTON!

None of this could happen with our current laws. Our current laws work and they protect us and our creations.

The only people who will benefit from the copyright law change are those who can't create work on their own or companies who stand to make a lot of money from using our works of art. They make contributions to congressmen, which is why they get what they want. We need to stand up and be heard. Every one of you need to write your senators and representatives. We have to protect our livelihoods. It's that serious.

Plus, the technologies being developed for locating visual art don't work well enough. On March 13, 2008, PicScout, the creators of one of the software applications used in the registries, stated to the House IP subcommittee:

"Our technology can match images, or partial information of an image, with 99% success."

A 1% margin of error is huge when you consider the millions of searches performed for art every day. That means for every million searches, 10,000 images could be orphaned.

Plus, this only takes into account images registered on their system. If you have registered all your work on another system, they won't be searched here and, even though you may have spent thousands of dollars registering your creations, a new or unused directory could orphan everything you've ever created.

This is just one of the many reasons why INTERNATIONAL LAW FORBIDS COERCED REGISTRATION as a condition of protecting your copyright. The United States is about to break international law by making us register our works. The people behind the bill say it's not forced registration, but you won't have any rights unless you register. THIS IS SEMANTICS! Of course, this is forced registration and we can't stand for it!

There are many, many other problems with the Orphan Works legislation. As a creator, YOU MUST understand what is going on.

For additional information on Orphan Works developments, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists.

This is not something that is going to go away easily. We need to be vocal NOW!

This legislation has been beaten or delayed for the past two years and they will keep trying until it passes. This is no time to be quiet and see what happens. What will happen depends on you. Send e-mails and call your congressmen. Ownership of your own creations depends on it.

Roger Dean sums this up well. "Where are the colleges and universities in all this? Has the whole world gone to sleep?"

GET ON ORPHAN WORKS E-MAIL LIST
To be notified of the latest information on the Orphan Works bill and when to contact your legislators, send an e-mail and ask to be added to the Orphan Works list.

AUDIO INTERVIEW LINK
I have recorded a fantastic interview with Brad Holland of the Illustrators' Partnership regarding this bill and what it means to us as artists. Please listen and learn more about how you may lose ownership of all your art and photos. This article and the recorded interview are available for anyone to use in print or online. Please forward this information to every person and group you know so that we can work together and protect our creations and livelihoods.

Mark Simon is an award-winning animation producer/director and speaker. He speaks around the world on subjects about art, animation and TV production. His copyrighted companies may be found online at www.SellYourTvConceptNow.com and www.Storyboards-East.com. He may be reached at marksimonbooks@yahoo.com.

Portions of this article use information and phrasing provided by the Illustrators' Partnership.

The opinions expressed in this article reflect those of the columnist and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of AWN, Inc. and its affiliates.

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Comments


Once again the talentless jealous and uncreative are lined up to claim that which they are incapable of imagining and producing on their own. Through their mentally deficient short sighted greed they will happily ruin the lives of their betters as "america the new third world country" retrogrades into a nation of incompetent losers by the incompetent losers and for the incompetent losers. Don't join the losers call and write your Congress and Senate and Governor and newspaper and do it every god damn week until we put this host of the uncreative down like the thieving curs that they so closely resemble.
Jason Argos (not verified) | Sat, 04/19/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
It seems the copyright office supports the orphan legislation and delivered a letter of support in March of 08 based on their findings in 2006. While the writer of this article may or may not be correct in all of his information, something is going on. Without more information and further study I cannot say if I support this proposed bill or not. http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat031308.html
Michael Grant (not verified) | Fri, 04/18/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
I am an artists and I am not important , but to make artists pay a fee and register all their art work if just unbelievable . Most artists are starving and then we add a fee when they can not deduct their work and some big business that makes millions can use it. How unjust are we going to get in the U S
Cynthia Anderson (not verified) | Fri, 04/18/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
This is an outrage! What kind of fools are in charge? This is the stupidist thing I have ever seen someone do with their power to influence laws!
Mizu Rakahasi (not verified) | Thu, 04/17/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
Howdy, Well, here's my opinion. You can like it or lump it. If you lump it, then that's your problem. Let's put our greed aside and look at this issue with a little integrity. First of all, no one should be able to register as the copyright owner of a work unless they: a) created the work, or b) paid for the creation of the work. If an owner of a work cannot be found, then it can be classified as being orphaned, BUT from the moment it is classified as being orphaned, it should go into a state of non-usability for a period length of the average life span of a human being. If the owner of the work can be determined before the end of the period of non-usability, then the work should be reclassified as being the property of its owner. If after the period of non-usablity has ended and an owner cannot be determined, it should then be classified as being public domain, or in other words "owned by the public." Once it is classified as being a work owned by the public, then anyone who wishes to use the work for profit should be required to pay the public for the use of the work. If the use of the work is not for profit, then the work could be used freely. In my opinion, if we use a work for profit, then we should have to pay for that use, by either spending the time and money to create it ourselves, paying someone else to create it for us, or paying the public for works that have been classified as public domain. Adios, Cactus Dan
Dan Libisch (not verified) | Thu, 04/17/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
The Orphan Works Legislation will affect the businesses of every creative person in the state the country. Thanks for your article, everybody, not just artists and other visual creatives should be concerned. Here is my blog entry posted on wwwcristinaacosta.blogspot.com : Have you ever picked up a camera and taken a picture? Of course you have. And you probably put the photos online and send them to your friends and family. Now and then a doting relative passes on a uber-cute photo to their friends. But no matter how large your circle is you'd never expect to see that same photo in some corporation's national ad campaign without your permission or payment. That's the future folks if the Orphan Works legislation passes. In fact, it's already happened. It's just going to get brazenly, egregiously worse and it will be virtually impossible for the little guy (most of us) to do anything to rectify this theft of our intellectual property. Follow the money on this bill and you'll realize that big business stands to gain. Everybody else -- photographers, painters, sculptors, designers and the ordinary guy or gal with a camera will lose, BIG. Virgin Mobil is in a lawsuit right now with a family that found a picture of their daughter in a Virgin Mobil advertisement. Taking advantage of the very small print on the Flickr site, Virgin's ad agency took this picture without permission -- and saved themselves a bunch of money on models and photo shoots. Alison Chang, the subject of the photo and her uncle, filmmaker Damon Chang got NOTHING. In fact, Alison Chang complained that the imagery insulted her Asian heritage. Read more about this on The Register.co.uk If you're an artist, don't fool yourself thinking that theft is some form of flattery. This is about your bottom line. No cash and you aren't able to work. The copyright laws as we know them will be gutted. Getty, Corbis and other media supply agencies will have free rein to use your images without ANY payment to you. And, it only gets worse. Individuals and businesses will get on the bandwagon. An image of your painting or design work could be put onto paper plates, tissue boxes, beach towels, calenders, stationary, ad campaigns and you'll get nothing except a sinking feeling when you walk into some retailers shop or open a magazine or book and see them SELLING your work and you get NOTHING! Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, the powerhouse behind the IPA's efforts to preserve the civil economic rights of creators has this to say: "Remember: the US Orphan Works amendment is not an exception to copyright law to permit the archiving and preservation of old, abandoned works. It is a license to infringe contemporary works by living artists worldwide. Its goal is to force these works into private commercial US registries as a condition of protecting copyrights. Coerced registration violates international copyright law and copyright-related treaties. To concede defeat on it is to knock a hole in copyright law and admit a Trojan horse." — Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership
Cristina Acosta (not verified) | Thu, 04/17/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
This article is ridiculous. It repeats itself for dramatic effect, and leaves the reader confused. Why write an article filled with so many scare tactics? I just want the facts from a logical point of view. This guy makes me sick.
Kaci Beeler (not verified) | Thu, 04/17/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
but I thought this had not gotten out of committee yet? Does anyone have any credible evidence as to where in the process it is?
ann Tracy (not verified) | Thu, 04/17/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
I hate this law...I will do all I can to help you fight this.... Steve D.
steve dreben (not verified) | Thu, 04/17/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
Poorly written and very misleading article. AWN should try to provide its readers with actual news and information, rather than this knee-jerk tripe. I am amazed at the ignorance that persists in the media these days.
Joe Shakula (not verified) | Thu, 04/17/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
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