The Orphan Works Bill

Please educate yourself and take action on opposing the Orphan Works bill. In short, this new legislation will make it virtually impossible for visual artists to protect their work because it essentially allows anyone to use an image without the copyright holder's permission.

Here is a link to the complete legislation - it is worth the time to read it because it will affect you and most people, if not everyone, you know: GovTrack.us

You don't have to be a professional visual artist to be affected by this. ALL OF YOU are affected by this, but you don't know it because this bill is being passed quietly and without publicity. All the images that you have on your blogs, personal Web sites, Flickr, Photobucket - any of these photo sharing sites - basically become commercial inventory if this bill passes. If this bill passes you will need to pay to register your images in the Copyright Office database in order to protect them, if you don't, they can be searched and harvested for commercial use, profit, reproduction, and creation of derivative works by ANYONE. Even if you DO decide to pay to have all your personal images registered, there is still hardly any liability on the part of the infringer because all they have to do is say they 'looked' for ownership, but didn't find any.

Here is an excerpt from an electronic letter by Illustrators' Partnership:

"Any image an infringer can locate without a name on it – or any he can remove a name from – can be run through a for-profit registry, and if it's not there, it will be fair game for companies to sell. In essence, it will be legalized theft and invasion of privacy."

Illustrators' Partnership has set up a site with electronic letters to make it easy to contact your congressmen and women:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

Many of the letters are editable, so you can tell your story of why this affects you, your friends, your family, etc. You can also send it with the text as is. If you wish to send one, choose one that fits your standpoint as a visual artist, photographer, member of the visual-image making public, business owner, supporter of visual artists, etc.

Here is a letter http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11333001 that if you agree with and sign it, will be sent to your US Senators and House Reps.

Here is a link to a letter to the House Judiciary Committee that was set up to send directly to a member of the House Judiciary Committee from your district or to your Representative asking him to contact his colleagues on the House Judiciary Committee on your behalf to urge them to oppose the bill.

Please keep track of the status of this bill using the GovTrack link above. The capwiz site will also be updated with electronic letters that can be sent to the appropriate government officials during the legislative process.

Stay protected - you and your intellectual property.