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On March 31st I wrote “Orphan Works Legislation … a Potential Nightmare for Visual Artists.”

To update, on April 10th, Mark Simon wrote, “Mind Your Business: You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art.,” which includes steps you can take to get involved. He also adds, “To be notified of the latest information on the Orphan Works bill and when to contact your legislators, send an e-mail and ask to be added to the Orphan Works list.”

Several people reacted strongly to his article, saying it is VERY overblown.

The Stock Artists Alliance has a blog with “up-to-date commentary on “Orphan Works” changes to US Copyright Law now under consideration by the US Congress.” Their blog is here. On March 30, 2008, they in part posted:

“Six months after the last version of an Orphan Works bill died in a Congressional committee, a new Orphan Works bill is being drafted for consideration in the 2008 legislative session.”

You can also read, “Statement of Marybeth Peters, The Register of Copyrights before the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, Committee on the Judiciary,” dated March 13, 2008 here.

There is an informative interview of Brad Holland of the Illustrator’s Partnership here.
It was done on April 5, 2008 by Mark Simon, who is an award-winning animation producer/director.
On the site are various comments, support and rebuttals.

Some include:

Q: There is no Orphan Works bill before Congress – one was introduced in 2006 but it was never voted on.
A : The bill is due out momentarily and will be fast-tracked for passage by summer. Because Congress wants to rush it through, we want to alert artists now.

Q: But if there isn’t a bill yet, how can we know what’s going to be in it?
A: Our information indicates that it will be basically the same as the one they introduced in 2006.

Q: Where is our information coming from?
A: From meetings with:

* Attorneys from the Copyright Office,
* Rep. Howard Berman, Chair of the House intellectual property subcommittee,
* Legislative assistants to the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate intellectual property subcommittee,
* Legislative assistant to Rep, Lamar Smith, who initiated the bill and
* The lobbyist for Getty and Corbis.

Food for thought.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 12th, 2008 at 1:05 am and is filed under Copyright - Orphan Works. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.