Semi-OT: Congress about to limit artists' copyright rights

[Leo Mauler]

Normally I find something like this and discover that the complainer either is making most of the problem up in his or her head, or actually wants to get rid of something else in the bill before Congress.  However, this appears to be an issue of genuine concern for artists, especially poor artists who can't afford the "registry fees".

http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

It would appear that Congress is already considering two bills, one in the House (H.R. 5889, "The Orphan Works Act of 2008") and one in the Senate (S 2913, "The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008") which would require all artists to register their artwork in private registries, none of which would be free to the artist.  The claim made by the bill is that this will help people wanting to use artwork to avoid a future lawsuit by making it easier for them to "find" the artist. 

The difficulty for artists everywhere is that if your artwork is not listed in any of the registries (possibly because you couldn't afford the fees), the person wanting to use your artwork can consider the artwork to be an "orphan work" and thus part of the public domain.  No matter how well-known your work is throughout your region, the country, or the world, if your artwork is not in any of the registries then it would still *legally* be an "orphan work".

If you do take the infringer to court over using your artwork, the law strips you of your right to copyright infringement damages, instead allowing the infringer to pay whatever s/he/it feels is fair for use of the artwork.

This law was attempted in 2006 and failed due to pressure from creators such as artists, illustrators, textile companies, and the like.  Apparently these new laws are on a fast track to get passed into law before the election campaigns of Congress members start in the late summer.

Just to underline that the government no longer cares about the rights of content creators, here's an excerpt from a letter (full text in the URL above) sent around by Brad Holland of the Illustrator's Partnership, a group which successfully opposed the 2006 bill:

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Q: Where did we get the idea that the Copyright Office wants to impose for-profit registries?
A: That proposal has been there from the beginning. Two examples (with emphasis added), the first from page 106 of the Copyright Office’s 2006 Orphan Works Report: 

“[W]e believe that registries are critically important, if not indispensable, to addressing the orphan works problem...It is our view that such registries are better developed in the private sector..." http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/orphan-report.pdf
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And on January 29 2007, twenty visual arts groups met in Washington D.C. with attorneys from the Copyright Office. The attorneys stated that the Copyright Office would not create these “indispensable” registries because it would be “too expensive.” So I asked the Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs: 

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Holland: If a user can’t find a registered work at the Copyright Office, hasn’t the Copyright Office facilitated the creation of an orphaned work?
 
Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries.
Holland: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register?
Carson: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest!
- From my notes of the meeting
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This exchange suggests that if Copyright Office proposals become law:

- Unregistered work will be considered a potential orphan from the moment you create it. 

- In the U.S., copyright will no longer be the exclusive right of the copyright holder.

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Under existing law, “[a] copyright gives the owner the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, perform, display, or license his work…Under current law, works are covered whether or not a copyright notice is attached and **whether or not the work is registered** (emphasis added).”

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/index.php/Copyright#copyright:_an_overview 

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