So, how would you like losing the rights to your artwork?

[Jim Rainer]

Searching throughout the internet today, I found a link to this story:
link
Apparently, there's a legislation in congress comtemplating forced registration of artwork for it to be protected by copyright.

[Snarboo]

I've heard about this before, but as I understand it, there hasn't been a serious bill put in front of Congress in recent years. It was mostly an idea that was being kicked around.

[Bloodshedder]

This is a very lovely example of sensationalist journalism. You don't "lose" any of your rights to your creations unless nobody can find you. Get it straight from the horse's mouth. H.R.5439 was introduced last Congress, and was never passed. No new law that I can find has been introduced for this Congressional session. Summary and full text of the (dead) bill in question.

[deathbringer]

HAY I HURD IF U USE GIFS ON UR PAGE U'LL HAVE 2 GIVE MICROSOFT MONEY!!!!

THIS LEGYSLATION IZ DUE TO START IN 200123456789 SO WRITE UR CONGRESSMAN SINE THE PITITION JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP 2 STOP IT!

[myk]

Mark Simon seems to be a tard getting worked up and ahead of himself, although Brad Holland of the Illustrators' Partnership does bring up some interesting points in the interview linked at the end, such as how determining when a "diligent search" for authorship has been made is handled, and that your legal action rights are diminished once a work is taken as orphaned by someone (because they didn't find it in a private registry). You'd have apparently no rights to statutory damages or legal fee expenses.

The main difference is that currently any work is copyrighted unless you can find it isn't, while the legislation seems to point towards assuming works are orphaned unless you find they aren't (being registered).

A lot of this talk hinges on stuff that doesn't even exist yet, so it's not clear what the implications would be, which would naturally depend on the legislation presented (as H.R.5439 is listed as "dead" or rejected as such).

The subject is certainly up in the air, though, as digital copying and sharing have certainly brought up some questions regarding copyrights. This sort of legislation would, for example, minimize potential legal hazards for wikis, contributors, and similar projects, but might also make it harder for traditional artists to work for pay, since either their work would either be hard to defend, or would entail additional registration costs that would depend on an independent private market.

[Bloodshedder]

I just skimmed this, but it seems to explain the situation well.

[Bucket]

Seeing as how the release of some of my artwork was part of a recent contract for my company to sell a full license to my client, I'm not much phased by this. Product branding and all that.

[pilottobombadier]

Bucket said:

Seeing as how the release of some of my artwork was part of a recent contract for my company to sell a full license to my client, I'm not much phased by this. Product branding and all that.

It would be if you were an independent.

Anyway, I couldn't find any links to the bill he was talking about; I was about to mention this in another forum, but I decided I'd look like an idiot.

I definitely agree with this being sensationalistic journalism; I mean, this guy only cares about pointing out hypothetical extremes to turn people to his side; Another Michael fucking Moore in the making.

However, it is an important issue nonetheless, considering the amount of written work I - and others - have freely available online that, while copyrighted to me by the site that hosts it, would lose recognition of its copyright if copyright laws changed in the US or Canada. And if they change in the US, let's face it, they'll change in Canada, too.

If there's to be a registry, it also can't be a private one, due to the complications that would arise from it; people could just selectively choose certain registries to deliberately ensure that they couldn't find an entry, and then steal the work.

It would have to be a centralised one that's operated by a government...and we all know how well that would work no thanks to overwhelming bureaucracy.

In short, that kind of thinking toward copyrighting would end up being nothing short of a clusterfuck, and only the creators would get screwed - no matter how you approached it.

[leileilol]

Even if this crazy crap happened they wouldn't do jack unless they abided by the GNU GPL which I license most of my community works on. And then they wouldn't dare anyway since they'd profit better from hiring some thrifty chinese artists.

[fraggle]

leileilol said:

Even if this crazy crap happened they wouldn't do jack unless they abided by the GNU GPL which I license most of my community works on. And then they wouldn't dare anyway since they'd profit better from hiring some thrifty chinese artists.

The GPL is based in copyright. If you "lost your rights" the material would become public domain for anyone to use and the GPL would have no power.

Reading up on this a bit more, it seems this guy has completely missed the point of the proposed bill. He says that "An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration". But an orphan work actually refers to (potentially) copyrighted material where the owner is not known.

If you write something (eg. a book, computer program, play, etc), it automatically becomes copyrighted. So if the author/owner is unknown, it's impossible to ever legally distribute it. The whole point of this is to add special legislation for these rare occasions, and grant the right to use the material if the owner cannot be found.

This would be great for certain abandonware games; in some cases where the company went bust and the owner cannot be found, they could end up free to the public.

[leileilol]

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-5889

it's back?