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Protect Your Right to Copyright!! by TristanAlexander
For more than a year Congress has been holding hearings for the drafting of a brand new US Copyright Act. At its heart is the return of Orphan Works
What does this mean for artists? it means it will make it easier for infringers to steal artists works and harder for people who are making or trying to make a living out of art more difficult. This will effect every artist and all the artwork they have created, are creating, and will be created. Corporates, Big businesses, and publishers want this to pass to make money out off artists works without paying us artists for past, current, and future artwork.
Basic Facts About The Law Being Proposed
“The Next Great Copyright Act” would replace all existing copyright law.
- It would void our Constitutional right to the exclusive control of our work.
- It would “privilege” the public’s right to use our work.
- It would “pressure” you to register your work with commercial registries.
- It would “orphan” unregistered work.
- It would make orphaned work available for commercial infringement by “good faith” infringers.
- It would allow others to alter your work and copyright these “derivative works” in their own names.
- It would affect all visual art: drawings, paintings, sketches, photos, etc.; past, present and future; published and unpublished; domestic and foreign. ** Ways to stop this or preventing these changes from happening** > > > > > > > DEADLINE IS NEXT THURSDAY: JULY 23, 2015 < < < < < <
share, reblog this post, spread it for other artists to take notice and action.
- You can submit a letter on how this law can be an issue for you as an artist here.
- Non-U.S. artists can email their letters to the attention of:
Catherine Rowland
Senior Advisor to the Register of Copyrights
U.S. Copyright Office
crowland@loc.gov
More About the Issue
Example Letters
Articles about this - 1, 2, 3, 4
“Right now nobody has to understand copyright law because you’re protected by it, but under the law they are proposing, copyright law wont protect you anymore.”
Protect Your Right to Copyright!!
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arikla
Actually, I just read the "act" over a few times and this is really not right. It is not actually before congress, the "Act" is the recommendation changes to the Copyrigth act that were submitted by the Registrar of Copyright. It has not gone through legal channels and is no where near being a bill yet. It does not void control of our work, it does not require (or pressure) to use commercial registries (only mention of registries is an acknowledgement that there may be monetary expenses for registration by the artist and compensation for the registration would be considered in any liabilities that must be paid by an infringer), it does not "Orphan" unregistered work as there is no requirement that a work be registered and it actually specifically prohibits use for commercial purposes. In terms of "derivative work" there has never been a restriction on use if something is "significantly altered" however this recommendation actually would require someone to list and mark parts used as "orphan" (with a fairly long list of what must be searched to qualify as "orphan").
While I definitely will keep an eye on what changes occur with regards to copyright, this thing that is going around is actually a fair bit of fear mongering. I would encourage you to read the recommendations from the Registrar of Copyrights: http://copyright.gov/orphan/reports/orphan-works2015.pdf (Fairly lengthy, the recommended amendment to the Copyright Act (not replacement) starts on page 114)