Posted on 05/01/2008 7:05:52 AM PDT by Frank L
Mind Your Business: You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art
April 10, 2008 By Mark Simon Printable Version
Mark Simon.
As you know, I usually handle the subjects in my articles with a sense of humor. That is not the case this month. I find nothing funny about the new Orphan Works legislation that is before Congress.
In fact, it PISSES ME OFF!
As an artist, you have to read this article or you could lose everything you've ever created!
An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration. In the same way that an orphaned child loses the protection of his or her parents, your creative work can become an orphan for others to use without your permission.
If you don't like to read long articles, you will miss incredibly important information that will affect the rest of your career as an artist. You should at least skip to the end to find the link for a fantastic interview with the Illustrators' Partnership about how you are about to lose ownership of your own artwork.
Currently, you don't have to register your artwork to own the copyright. You own a copyright as soon as you create something. International law also supports this. Right now, registration allows you to sue for damages, in addition to fair value.
What makes me so MAD about this new legislation is that it legalizes THEFT! The only people who benefit from this are those who want to make use of our creative works without paying for them and large companies who will run the new private copyright registries. (continued)
(Excerpt) Read more at mag.awn.com ...
There are a number of folks who might be affected by this law.
Thanks for the heads-up. I didn’t know a thing about this until I read your post.
Kill.
I’m not a digital illustrator but I do post my photos on the web. I don’t want them used by just anyone.
Will this effect me?
It could. Getty Images could scoop up your stuff without paying you for it and use to to make money.
Wow...thanks for the heads up!
Yikes!
I don’t have anything on Photobucket or those sites, but I do have a MySpace page and a Facebook.
I don’t want my kids anywhere that I don’t know about!
Just when I’m finally starting to make some money off my paintings.....
self-ping for after work
I'm an illustrator. Registering every work, particularly in the digital age, would be near impossible. I create illustrations which I then modify for various print uses. One illustration can have 10 permutations. Would I have to register every one?
I think this might be a good time to freep Congress....
From what I can tell, yes you would.
And Leahy (D-VT) is the sponsor in the senate.
People steal logos and designs all the time, alter them slightly, and then market your idea's as their own. You should always make sure you can prove when you've created your work before posting it on public domain, and keep a record of those dates too. Look how something as simple as a happy face can become something big, and a big legal battle as well for ownership and usage rights.
No surprise there.
It’s very scary.
My girls used to perform both Polish and Slovak Folk Dance.
When my little one was in Slovak, she was photographed many times and in different papers. She looks very Ethnic.
Now since she dropped out, no one seems to photograph the group.
I think I need to get her pictures off the internet.
No, but you do know when you created them, and when you put it up on public domain, right? That's what you have to keep track of. Theres always an electronic record.
Even is someone steals it, alters it, then claims they made it before you, It would be very hard for them to create an electronic record on public domain preceding yours.
Proving they altered something of yours, and that it wasn't their own original design that just happens to be similar to yours is another matter.
That may not be so easy. You have to be careful when posting stuff on the net to make sure the site doesn't have some wording somewhere giving them ownership, creative control, the right of use. They may even charge a fee to have stuff you posted removed, or to edit them.
Sometimes it may even be impossible to remove stuff from the net. Sites change ownership, content gets stored on other services the origional site owner has no control over, and pictures get copied and spread all over the place. Not much you can do about that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.