News
Senate passes Orphan Works bill (S2913), House expected to follow
The visual arts community has recently learned that the Orphan Works Bill (S2913, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008) was “hot lined” for a vote in the Senate on Friday afternoon. Upon hearing of this artists and trade organizations have been set ablaze with emotion. On late Friday afternoon the bill was passed in the Senate on the last day of the Congressional term while most of the national attention has been focused on responding to an economic crisis. According to a statement by the Advertising Photographers of America (APA) “Passing controversial legislation by this process, i.e. under the radar, is deeply troubling to say the least and every Senator needs to be held accountable.”
In response to the news more than 70 trade organizations representing over 100,000 photographers, illustrators, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms, have called upon their members to oppose the bill and to email their Senators. In order to ease the process the organizations have set-up a simple email form that allows you to email Congress located at http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321.
The following organizations oppose H.R. 5889, and S. 2913, because each bill permits, and even encourages, wide-scale infringements while depriving creators of protections currently available under the 1976 U.S. Copyright Act, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, and the international TRIPs Agreement.
American Society of Illustrators Partnership
• The Illustrators Partnership of America
• The Society of Illustrators New York
• The American Society of Architectural Illustrators
• The Association of Medical Illustrators
• The Guild of Natural Science Illustrators
• The American Society of Aviation Artists
• The Illustrators Club of Washington DC, Maryland and Virginia
• The Pittsburgh Society of Illustrators
• The National Cartoonists Society
• The San Francisco Society of Illustrators
• The Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles
• The Society of Illustrators of San Diego
• Association of American Editorial Cartoonists
Advertising Photographers of America
Artists Rights Society of New York
– representing 40,000 fine artists worldwide
Artists Foundation
Appalachian Pastel Society
Art of Licensing Listserve
Atlanta Artists Center
Atlanta Photography Group
Atlanta Photographic Society
California Copyright Conference
Colorado Alliance of Illustrators
Creators’ Rights Alliance
Editorial Photographers of America
Maine Illustrators Collective
National Association of Independent Artists
Editorial Photographers of America
National Needle Arts Association
National Press Photographers Association
New Jersey Creatives Network
Oil Pastel Society
Palm Beach County Art Society
Philadelphia/Tri State Artists Equity Association, Inc.
Professional Women Photographers, Inc.
Society of Decorative Painters
Society of Digital Artists
Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators
Society of Photographers and Artists Representatives
South Cobb Arts Alliance
Southeastern Pastel Society
Stock Artists Alliance
Studio Art Quilt Association
Tannery Row Artist Colony
United States Digital Imaging Group
Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts of Massachusetts
Wellington Art Society
Women in Focus
International Associations
International Council of Creators of Graphic, Plastic and Photographic Arts
– artists’ rights societies of 31 countries, representing over 100,000 visual artists
Association of Illustrators (UK)
Association of Photographers (UK)
Association de Illustrateurs et Illustratrices du Quebec
Association Européenes des Illustrateurs Médicaux et Scientifiques
Association of Dutch Designers
Canadian Association of Photographers and Illustrators in Communication
Cyberscribes-- an International Assembly of Lettering Artists
FreeLens (France)
Union des Photographes Créateurs (France)
International Quilt Association
Pro-Imaging.org
Rassemblement des Artistes en Arts Visuels
Australian Cartoonists’ Association
Writers
National Writers Union
Music
National Association of Record Industry Professionals (NARIP)
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
Los Angeles Music Network (LAMN)
Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP)
American Federation of Musicians (AFM)
Music Managers Forum (MMF)
Nashville Songwriters Association International (NSAI)
Native American Music Association (NAMA)
Recording Artists’ Coalition (RAC)
California Copyright Conference (CCC)
Web: Track the progress of current Orphan Works legislation: S.2913, H.R. 5889.
Posted in: News, Orphan Works, Photographers
Comments(4)
post a comment »COPIX, September 30, 2008 [#]
How unfortunate that your setting for ACTION against the `orphan bill` does not allow intrenational zip code. Means we cannot register.
James, September 30, 2008 [#]
This act is highly unlikely to affect your works unless you’ve been dead for a significant period of time. Since you’re writing, I’m going to assume that you’re not. What it would have done is permit artists, like you, to use old, by all rights out of copyright works, in your own work without fear that some company that bought up every last scrap of the estate of some obscure artist will wait for you to become successful before attacking you. It would simply have removed a predatory tactic from the corporate IP trolling toolbox. This is not something that would harm individual creators. Perhaps you should think before you blindly follow the trade organizations you belog to.
Stephen, October 01, 2008 [#]
James, the bill is SUPPOSED to only affect orphan works. It would be welcome if that’s all it did. But the effect would be much wider. The bill does not define a diligent search, yet if a commercial organization comes across any image in which the copyright has been stripped off, then does a “diligent search,” and can’t find the copyright owner, the infringer can then use the image penalty-free. The legal copyright owner no longer has the legal right to pursue damages, which is the only deterrent to infringing. To hold on to what few rights are left, the bill would force copyright owners to pay to have their images included on commercial registries. (Which is against international copyright law.) It’s been reported the images on these registries will only be searchable with words. It seems likely that a “diligent search” will frequently not find the copyright owner, and then the use the image becomes basically penalty-free. It’s a poorly written bill and shouldn’t be supported simply because the intent is good.
Tom, October 06, 2008 [#]
As a fine artist, I have achieved some success, such as having painted a portrait of a
recent President of the Senate that hangs in our statehouse, and yet it was not until I was in my fifties that my income finally reached $20,000 a year, a pitifully small amount in an area where an average 1 bedroom apartment costs $18,000 a year. Needless to say, I live in an efficiency apartment. And yet I am one of the few artists I know who can support himself with his art. It means not owning a car, a television, not even having been able to go out to the cinema in over a year, and then only because I was given a free pass. I often open my studio to the public, and despite my prohibition, people do surreptitiously take photographs, meaning that images of my work can easily get into other peoples’ hands and circulated without due attribution. And with digital photography and the Internet, the images can travel around the world in minutes. And yet to stop opening my studio would lower my income, which I can not afford to do.
The idea that a publisher, that anyone “needs” to use an existing work instead of hiring a living artist to make a new one is absurd. Even the title, “Orphan works bill” is misleading. Images are not children who have lost their parents and need to be nurtured. They are private property. Furthermore, by making it easier to use copyrighted images, we are depriving living artists of work.
As to James’ suggestion that this wouldn’t hurt “individual creators” who would use someone
else’s work in their own, he clearly doesn’t understand what a creator does. Someone who appropriates another’s image is not one.