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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


TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: A fellow artist who sells many of her works in our organization WCA sent this to me. In turn, I am forwarding this to other fellow artists. Then I will be sending this out to at least three if not more Art Centers in the local area. All artists should be aware of this. In turn, they should take an active part in preventing the pirating of our art work that is so precious to all of us. Genevieve Perkins
Genevieve Perkins (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
What is the number of this bill you are referencing? Please include that or post a link to the bill itself; otherwise no one will be able to judge the bill for themselves. This is the only recent mention I was able to find on Orphan Works, and it doesn't discuss private registries as you have outlined them in your article. http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat031308.html
Emily W (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
I have one question: What is the bill number of this current attack on artists? Being one I was concerned and started doing my research, and yes there are those of us out there that actually does this, and I could not find any current legislation about this matter in/on the congress website. Any info on this would be far more helpful than plastering this fear mongering style of writing. If we are to make a real stand for ourselves, we need all this kind of information and not just something to get us fired up with no proper direction.
John Karn (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
Dear artists and art world, already now, even without the new changes, companies world wide infringe ruthless world known artists. Since five years we fight around the globe for our rights.These peoples interest is only greed and money. ART....creative humans....hard working artists....ethic...all that does not count for these people, they got only $ in their brain, without scruple. These infringers raped from many bronze artists whole collection, up to 30 knock offs. We fight already for our existence. Please visit our web site: www.bronzecopyright.com
Impala Lechner (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
I e-mailed the U.S. Copyright Office aksing if Congress was considering changing copyright laws so that one would have to register a work to copyright it at all, and their answer began with "No that is not true." According to the link they gave me(http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat031308.html), the bill under consideration seeks to make it easier for artists to use legitimately Orphan Works, not make all unregistered creations Orphan Works... because Orphan Works are not in the public domain. An orphaned work is something that *is* copyrighted, but is difficult if not impossible to contact the copyright owner for permission for another artist to use it. A creation with no copyright that is free and up fo grabs is called "in the public domain." If the law in question said that a work must be registered or it will be considered orphaned, said work would not be in the public domain. Is there a bill under consideration that says all creations must be registered or they will be "in the public domain"? That would make sense- it would be terrible, but it would make sense. I'm a hopeful artist, but I'm not panicking.
Jill (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
I just want to say I think your a total jerk. Clearly this article had almost NO research backing it up. The storm this has caused on the online artist community is unparalleled. I hope you got what you wanted if it was a big fat ugly DRAMA FEST you were looking for. You made a much bigger deal out of the whole situation then really needed to be made out of it. No one will loose their their copyrights. If you cant find the photographer of your great grandmothers wedding photo from 100 years ago, THEN you may. And I should also mention this was not an actual bill that was before congress. The idea was shot down twice before it even made it anywhere. Do everyone a favor. Before you take a crack at amateur journalism, you might want to like, make sure you at least know what the hell your talking about. I'm not the only one whose pissed, BTW.
Hummingbird Anonomous (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
The Orphan Works Bill died in Committee in 2006. THERE IS NO SUCH BILL IN CONGRESS AT THIS TIME. Do better research, people.
Wolf SilverOak (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
I am truly upset about this new bill . I will be one of the voices crying in the wilderness of "apathy". I do know that alot of artists are not aware of the proper procedure for copyright registration. The process is not as painful as it sounds and not as difficult as trying to get our work noticed by galleries, museums, and the commercial industry.
christine schmalz (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
First things first; while we get our point across in DC (think two years of shoeleather), let's do what any inventor does: 1. keep daybooks which diarise our key work, and date, sign the entries. Every three months or so, have another person read the daybook and make an entry to the effect that he/she has done that task and understands what's written there. 2. archive all work. Sign and date everything, log those events into your daybook. Photograph or scan everything you do. This will take you about 90 minutes a week, with practice. Record the digital files on separate media, like CD; make two copies, one for your safe box, one at hand. Sounds like a pain but get used to it, it'll go faster. 3. be very carefiul to trace the development of all your biggest ideas, eg the seven or eight drafts of an evolving image. Be conscious of what you believe you are doing AND make sure that someone else knows that you have a record. 4 OK. So now you have records that match those of any inventor; you have done what big firms insist their employee idea people do. Your archive is protected, still, by existing US law practice. If you rally want to gild the lily, mail a copy of your archive to yourself, Certified (important!) and keep the receievd package UNOPENED in case you need to establish a precedence date. 5. What I have just written is what I find I have to teach industrial clients the very first day I am retained. Because I make paintings and designs myself, I offer this very traditional cautionary advice here for free. Good luck all, and let's get together. Peter Cannon
Peter Cannon (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
Thank you very much for the information here within this article. I have never really paid much attention to the laws of art, and registering things. This disturbs me to no end. I will begin my monotonous conquest of senators shortly
Angel Mori (not verified) | Sun, 04/13/2008 - 00:00 | Permalink
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