Orphan Works Advocacy - Make yourselves aware. A news brief regarding the Orphan Works legislation. Orphan Works is a political motion to enable publishers to legally publish art without necessarily having to compensate the author. It's bad news, especially for those of us who actually know what pens and paint brushes are. And I didn't mean it when I said 'brief'. Instead of regurgitating the facts of the matter and the feelings of the artists whose livelihoods are at stake, I'm quoting association testimony. This could be worth a thumb tack.
Here is a link to the up to date Orphan Works reports by the Graphic Artists Guild. http://gag.org/activities/advocacy.php
Here is a link link to the Graphic Artists Guild homepage, where you'll find other related news. http://gag.org/
Here is a link to the up to date Orphan Works reports by the Graphic Artists Guild. http://gag.org/activities/advocacy.php
Here is a link link to the Graphic Artists Guild homepage, where you'll find other related news. http://gag.org/
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As creators of art, we all are aware of copyright infringement...defined as some individual or company using what we artists created for their own financial gain without our permission and without paying the artist, or creator, for it. It is a problem in this country, but the problem is out of control in other countries. If you've been following this issue, you know that the U.S. has been trying everything in their arsenal to stop China from mass producing and selling products and images that are copyrighted in the U.S, as China is one of the biggest propagators of copyright infringement in the world. And as you probably already know, the reason why extinguishing this problem around the world is so difficult is because other countries need only to abide by their own country's copyright laws, not ours, and these other country's copyright laws are much looser than America's, if they even have them at all. U.S. Copyrighted material of every kind is mass distributed in many other countries without the creator ever seeing a cent from those sales. And then they come back into the American market at much cheaper cost with the creator still not seeing a cent from these sales. But because of our existing copyright laws, this activity is policed and the propagators on our land are convicted and sentenced. Thank goodness we still have copyright laws in this country that protect the artist, right? That could change very soon. If we artists, illustrators, designers, sculptors, and all other forms of visual artists are not diligent and active, if we don't actively oppose legislation that threatens to destroy our careers, we will allow the U.S. to become just like the other countries, who's unethical and unfair practices we are trying to oppose. There are two kinds of business people in this world - creators and distributors. Artists create, but we need distributors to get our work out there. Problem is, when artists get paid for our work, distributors make less money because the price of the product goes up, and when that happens, less people will purchase it. Keep the cost down, you sell more. Sony Music, for example, could lower the price of their product if they used an already existing image and didn't pay the illustrator to design the package and collect royalties on every CD sold. If this happens, how would an illustrator make a living at their craft? Do you see how changing the current U.S. Copyright Laws are very detrimental to the business of art and illustration? Right now, we are protected. But distributers are trying to change things that work in their favor and against ours with their proposed "Orphan Works" amendment. And since they have the Public on their side, we artists are outnumbered. This is what makes it so important that we join with other Illustration Societies and individual artists across the country and contact our Senators and intelligently urge them to vote down the proposed legislation that would so negatively impact each and every artist in our industry. Remember, an "Orphan Work" is any work of art in which the distributor can't find the creator. And the way this amendment is written, the distributor can use your art, not pay you for it, and need only say "Oh, I looked, but I couldn't find the artist." In many of these instances, the distributor doesn't even need to show any proof that they tried to look for you. Isn't it ironic that as the U.S. is fighting other countries on this issue, we creators now have to battle our own lawmakers on this one? Copied below is my most recent email I received from the nationally reknowned illustrator Brad Holland of the Illustrator's Partnership, and below that is the letter that PSI's own Ilene Lederer typed for all of us to copy and send to our Senators urging them to oppose this amendment. |
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| FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP No Time to Go Wobbly Some people think the Orphan Works amendment is a done deal and say the government should set up small claims courts to litigate the infringement cases that will follow. The Orphan Works Report itself justifies this concern. It states that a "reasonable search" for a copyright holder will have to be "a very general standard" defined "by users, copyright owners and ultimately the courts on a case-by-case basis..."(p. 98, emphasis added) That means that if somebody infringes your work and you can't "negotiate" a "reasonable fee" after the fact, you'll have to sue them. But copyright law is a Federal law. There are only 11 Federal Districts in the country with approximately 100 US District Courts. Would you have to travel to one every time you need to file a suit? If so, you wouldn't be able add travel and lodging expenses to your claim. Nor could you add court costs or attorneys' fees, even if you've registered the work. That wouldn't be permitted by the "limitation on remedies." The Orphan Works amendment virtually guarantees that the cost of suing an infringer who won't pay will be greater than whatever you could get back from a lawsuit (and of course, you might not win). By "limiting remedies," the Orphan Works amendment would create a no-fault license to infringe. We've asked Copyright Office attorneys how artists scattered across the country can be forced to go to Federal Courts to get minimum payment for infringed work. Their answer was they weren't sure, but are considering establishing a copyright small claims court. But we don't see how that resolves the jurisdictional problem: Are we supposed to believe the government's actually going to set up a federal small claims court in every city and town in America just to hear copyright cases? No. And what if you live in one city and the infringer somewhere else? Another problem with relying on small claims courts is that awards are limited to $2,000. That would cap the "reasonable fee" the court could allow for any usage - regardless of the commercial value of the usage and the number of works infringed. Small claims judgments can't be enforced. And since an infringer would only have to say he couldn't read your signature on a picture to claim you were "hard to locate," judges in a majority of cases might have to find for the infringer. The whole idea of legalizing infringement and making artists go to court to get paid is absurd. The Orphan Works Report is a Rube Goldberg plan, designed by legal scholars and Free Culture advocates who want to make the public a generous gift of other people's work - and supported by companies like Google who want a vast inventory of royalty-free images to sell access to. The hope that artists will lie down and take this – if we can just get a small claims court for city or state judges to administer federal copyright law - is a thin sugar coating on a poison pill. It certainly isn't practical and may not be legal. Rather than rise to the bait, we think artists should oppose the Orphan Works amendment outright. This is no time to go wobbly. -Brad Holland, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership This email may be posted and/or forwarded in its entirety to any interested party. |
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layer:eight OST request service.
Can't find it? Too lazy to look? Too broke to purchase it from an overpriced import store near you? Too cheap to order it online? Too young to have a bank account and a debit card so that you could hypothetically order it in the first place, assuming you weren't so cheap and/or broke? If you said yes to 3 or more of these excuses, I will help your poor soul.
PM me with request. p.s. jay was here!
layer:eight OST request service.
Can't find it? Too lazy to look? Too broke to purchase it from an overpriced import store near you? Too cheap to order it online? Too young to have a bank account and a debit card so that you could hypothetically order it in the first place, assuming you weren't so cheap and/or broke? If you said yes to 3 or more of these excuses, I will help your poor soul.
PM me with request. p.s. jay was here!
Fishnets and merrywidows.
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Southern California
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