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Orphan Act
Apr. 12th, 2008 11:04 amSo who here knows about the Orphan Act? Anyone? If you do, and you know it's current state, than I'm sure you're probably just as upset as I am. If not, well, read on.
The Orphan Act is legislation that failed being passed last time through the house, and is now being redrafted with some interesting (read: Horrifying) new additions. Originally, the intent of the bill is a fairly honorable one-- open up orphaned artworks to the public domain for archiving purposes, orphaned artworks being those that have long been abandoned by their creators or whose creators and heirs have long since passed away. Problem being that this is a very hard thing to define, so the bill was not enacted.
This time around, they are trying to define it . . . by submitting something that could be devastating to visual artists in all mediums, break with international copyright law and sever more than a few international copyright treaties. As it works now, passive copyright laws mean that as soon as you produce something, it is under your copyright, and you may sue in the case of misappropriation (if you have registered your artwork under copyright, you win the right to sue for damages, as opposed to simply for removal or loss of income incurred). Under the new Orphan Act being put together, to ensure your copyright you would have to register EVERY piece of work you want protected with newly established commercial registries. If you don't, your work would be legally defined as orphaned. This includes: thumbnails, sketches, final pieces, in progress works, storyboards, doodles, etc. These orphaned works are then open to use by anyone, from some tween bastard stealing your character design as their new Pokemon avatar to major corporations appropriating mass amounts of artwork without paying the artists. The ever ubiquitous They are trying to formulate and pass this new bill by summer session.
This article is not terribly well written, but sums most of it up.
This page is running updates as they come through and providing information. I especially want to point out this article about the consequences and this one about the use of the registries.
Please pass this on if you at all care. This sucks, a lot.
The Orphan Act is legislation that failed being passed last time through the house, and is now being redrafted with some interesting (read: Horrifying) new additions. Originally, the intent of the bill is a fairly honorable one-- open up orphaned artworks to the public domain for archiving purposes, orphaned artworks being those that have long been abandoned by their creators or whose creators and heirs have long since passed away. Problem being that this is a very hard thing to define, so the bill was not enacted.
This time around, they are trying to define it . . . by submitting something that could be devastating to visual artists in all mediums, break with international copyright law and sever more than a few international copyright treaties. As it works now, passive copyright laws mean that as soon as you produce something, it is under your copyright, and you may sue in the case of misappropriation (if you have registered your artwork under copyright, you win the right to sue for damages, as opposed to simply for removal or loss of income incurred). Under the new Orphan Act being put together, to ensure your copyright you would have to register EVERY piece of work you want protected with newly established commercial registries. If you don't, your work would be legally defined as orphaned. This includes: thumbnails, sketches, final pieces, in progress works, storyboards, doodles, etc. These orphaned works are then open to use by anyone, from some tween bastard stealing your character design as their new Pokemon avatar to major corporations appropriating mass amounts of artwork without paying the artists. The ever ubiquitous They are trying to formulate and pass this new bill by summer session.
This article is not terribly well written, but sums most of it up.
This page is running updates as they come through and providing information. I especially want to point out this article about the consequences and this one about the use of the registries.
Please pass this on if you at all care. This sucks, a lot.
