so for those of you working in any filed with intellactual property should look into the orphan works bill, if passed it will really mess shit up. if you go to http://www.illustratorspartnership.org you can find all the info you need to see how fucked this would be. it alows you to contact your senator very easily with a body of text that looks something like this...
Dear Senator Biden:
As a constituent, I am writing to express my grave misgivings about H.R. 5889, The Orphan Works Act of 2008. I strongly oppose this bill.
I would like to make it clear that I am not opposed to usage of orphan works by the cultural heritage sector for noncommercial purposes, or use by museums and libraries for preservation and education. But this legislation makes no limitations for these purposes, and will dangerously expose visual art to infringements while stripping artists and the art licensing business of any practical means to protect their creations.
The Orphan Works Act will affect all images from professional paintings to family snapshots. This includes any image, whether published or unpublished - or any that resides or ever resided on the internet. It will force me to register every image I make with privately-held commercial registries. All unregistered works will be exposed as potential orphans for commercial infringement.
This radical change to U.S. copyright law will shift the burden of diligence from infringers to rights holders. All of us will have to regularly monitor the unauthorized use of our most personal work - an impossible task because infringements can occur anytime, anywhere in the world. It is wrong to give infringers the right to make money from my property without my knowledge or consent. How could I ever stop bad actors from using it in abusive, cheap or distasteful ways? I am alive, working and "locatable" to anyone I wish to find me. I am managing my copyrights in accord with U.S. and international law. I should not have to pay some for-profit company to keep the work I've created.
Copyright laws are based on legal and business practices that have passed the test of time. They protect a vulnerable form of private property and the privacy rights embodied in them. They should not be undermined for the sake of special interest groups or for transitory reasons.
For those and other reasons, I ask you to consider the harm this bill can do to existing businesses and vote against it unless it is amended to precisely define an orphan work as a copyright no longer managed by a rightsholder.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed Orphan Works legislation.
Sincerely,
Todd Purse
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