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Edited, because my first comment was a little grouchy and maybe too harsh, sorry!
To sum up what I said the first time, there is no such bill before congress. Doesn’t exist.
To go on in more detail though, this article is very fear-mongering, heavy on the conspiracies and the tinfoil hats, and light on the facts and references, which seriously undermines its credibility, as far as I’m concerned.
The facts as I was able to research them:
1. There was a bill about “Orphan Works” up before congress in 2006. This bill did deal with copyright and the treatment of “abandoned” works of art. The bill was not, however, being backed by Bill Gates, was not a plot between Bill Gates and the government to steal art or legalize art theft, and did not require artists to register their copyrights. (Requiring copyright registration is illegal.)
2. The actual subject of the bill was an attempted solution to the problem of orphaned art, art that has no owner, either because the owner has deliberately abandoned it, or because the owner is unknown. To simplify it, the bill was basically saying that if somebody finds a work of art, and makes every possible effort to locate and contact the original artist, and cannot do so, then they have a legal right to use that art, and cannot be taken to court for doing so. This has the potential for abuse, yes, but I really would prefer it, in that case, if people would discuss the real issue, and not the boondoggle of legalizing art theft, which was not the intended purpose of the bill at all.
3. The bill failed to pass.
4. There was a subcommittee hearing to consider a similar bill for this current session of congress, but it fizzled and nothing happened.
There is still some legitimate concern about this bill possibly turning up again; however, a.) the bill isn’t nearly so awful as that article claims, and b.) it also may never come up again, while there ARE many bills that we ought to concern ourselves with that ARE currently being debated in congress.
I really dislike this sort of thing, and while I know that people who re-post these kinds of articles are very well meaning and just want to warn their friends, I honestly wish more people would research this kind of thing before passing it along just on the say-so of some guy on the internet. It causes so much concern and worry and wasted effort that could be spent on real issues and not on boogeymen.
No offense whatsoever to pegasi! I know you probably got this from a very legitimate seeming source and were trying to do us all a favor, that’s very wonderful of you.
Oh, and so this isn’t a case of two people who heard it on the internet saying it’s so, here’s the actual facts.
The text of the bill itself:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/t2GPO/http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h5439ih.txt.pdf
(You’ll need to click the “continue to GPO site” link to get it.)A report about the situation that inspired the bill from the US Copyright office:
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdfI have seen one article mentioning the return of this bill, here:
http://oncopyright.copyright.com/2008/03/17/orphan-works-are-back-on-congress%E2%80%99s-radar-screen/However, the bill is NOT listed for the current session of congress.
http://thomas.loc.gov/ is where you can look up current legislation.
Thank you SPark…that is a relief.
I have a lot of artwork out there, it would really suck to have to pay to protect it all. Considering the number of artwork done a year by various artists, it would be prohibitive to have to pay to copyright them all. And what would ultimately happen if it became a fact would be that artists would have to abandon doing art, if we can’t afford to protect it, the only way to do so is not to make it.
I think that was considered and since we need art for so many reasons, Congress had to kill it. Just think, no new photos, new artwork, no comics…it would be bad.
Kyrin
Yes thank you SPark for clearing up about this. I’m glad to hear it’s not something that needs to be worried about just yet. I’ll change the first post accordingly!
SPark is right- it’s not as evil as some articles currently going around makes it out to be.
However, I am still going to write to my congress-person if it does reach congress again. If such a bill is passed, I want the language to be very clear. I regularly have my work stolen and reposted just about everywhere, and thieves often remove my copyright and contact info from the art. This bill needs to be clear on what an orphaned work is and what recourse an artist has if they find someone using one of their works without permission, under the umbrella of the orphaned works bill.
It is not something to freak out about by any means. But I am going to write a polite letter expressing concerns if the bill is indeed pushed to congress at some point. Even in every blown-out-of-proportion crazy internet stunt, there is usually some seed of truth. Keep your eye on it, prepare a polite letter, but for now all is well.
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My art: featherdust.comSPark wrote:Oh, and so this isn’t a case of two people who heard it on the internet saying it’s so, here’s the actual facts.
The text of the bill itself:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/t2GPO/http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_bills&docid=f:h5439ih.txt.pdf
(You’ll need to click the “continue to GPO site” link to get it.)A report about the situation that inspired the bill from the US Copyright office:
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdfI have seen one article mentioning the return of this bill, here:
http://oncopyright.copyright.com/2008/03/17/orphan-works-are-back-on-congress%E2%80%99s-radar-screen/However, the bill is NOT listed for the current session of congress.
http://thomas.loc.gov/ is where you can look up current legislation.
Thank you for posting this. I saw the article this morning. I thought it was funny that the writer didn’t have a link to the bill in question. (Honestly it sounded like a “witch hunt” and I was meaning to try to find the bill to find out the truth.)
I don’t have my art on the internet, first because I’m too lazy, second I’ve had so many things stollen (literally) that I wouldn’t even think of posting anything. But, it’s still nice to keep up to date on things like this. Even when it’s not happening in the same country….
Wow this rumour really spread like wildfire, I’ve seen it mentioned just about everywhere art-related @_@
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