Artists Opposing Orphan Works

As of today over 16,000 letters have been sent to congress concerning the orphan works bill.

Other groups have begun to notice and get their members involved.
Editorial Photographers (EP), Society of Photographers and Artists
Representatives (SPAR) and the National Press Photographers Association
(NPAA) have joined the IPA's CapWiz site.

Please forward this to others and continue the grass roots effort.


This article appeared on May 7th in Intellectual Property Watch
Intellectual Property Watch is a non-profit independent news service which reports on the interests and behind-the-scenes dynamics that influence the design and implementation of international intellectual property policies. It is based in Geneva Switzerland.

(7 May 2008) Support Mixed For US Orphan Works Bill As Issue Catches Global Attention
By Dugie Standeford for Intellectual Property Watch
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE:
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=1028


In an issue that may be rising internationally, legislation pending in the United States Senate and House to free up use of “orphan works” whose copyright owners cannot be found has won strong support from the recording, webcasting and library sectors but faces challenges from visual artists and the textile industry...

Visual Artists, Textile Industry Opposed

Illustrators, photographers and other visual artists, however, are mobilising to challenge the proposal.

“Our chief objective to these bills is that they’ve been written so broadly their effect can’t be limited to true orphaned work,” Illustrators’ Partnership of America (IPA) founder Brad Holland told Intellectual Property Watch. Forcing anyone who creates a visual work, whether professional or personal, published or unpublished, to register it with yet-to-be-created commercial registries will cause users to rely increasingly on the companies to perform a diligent search, he said. Unregistered works could then be infringed as orphans, he said.

The proposals will disproportionately affect visual artists because paintings, drawings and photographs are often published without contact information, credit lines can be easily removed by others, and pictures can be separated from the publications in which they appear, Holland said. And because visual artists often produce many more works than the most prolific author or songwriter, it will cost them more time and money to register and maintain tens of thousands of registrations, he said.

The legislation will create a “gold mine for opportunists” as commercial archives harvest newly-created “orphans,” alter them slightly to make “derivative works,” and then register them as their own “creative works,” Holland said. In addition, coercive registration may violate the Berne Convention, which bars requiring “any formality” as a precondition to copyright protection, the IPA, Advertising Photographers of America and Artists Foundation of Massachusetts said in 30 April comments to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Take Action: Don't Let Congress Orphan Our Work
2 minutes is all it takes to write Congress and protect your copyright:

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

Please forward this message to every artist you know.