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Orphan Works Act - From Concept Art

I received this in my in box this morning. I'm sure others have also gotten this who are part of or subscribed to concept art.org.

I urge those who have the funds to find and secure all non-mainstream "registry names" for 5 years and sit on them. Whether or not this passes it will be helpful in the long run.

The businesses are pushing this and greed is fueling this act. It seems that no matter how many organizations and artists rally to see this die, others with more money and political savy are trying to make sure this goes through. *sighs*

n an effort to give back and to begin to take on bigger challenges as a community, ConceptArt.Org has been quietly working to solve the pending Orphan Bill (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqBZd0cP5Yc for more information on what we are up against and what we desperately created a solution for).

The new viewer is here: http://www.conceptart.org/search/index.php?cat=bestof&forumid=5

This summer we helped send thousands of emails to the members of the US House and Senate to stop this bill. What did we get in return? Canned email form letters thanking us for sharing our views. The bill drafts went the House and Senate anyway. The artists, professionals, and creative organizations who were trying to protect artist rights were ignored by the US government completely. Realizing that even a hundred thousand signatures wont stop the copyright bill, at least that is how it looks from here, I got to thinking what we have to do to solve the problems right here at home.

Artists having to pay to be in searchable registries is potential problem number one. I believe this will be left to the private companies based on my research into who is supporting this horrible bill and what businesses are opening preparing for it. I went in and checked the domain registry to search to see if people were buying the domains (registermyart.com, artregistry.com, etc..etc...) and every one I searched was gone. This was the red flag that began the real push to solve this assault on artist rights. The corporate sharks are already preparing to feed it seems.

Since the business world reads the laws and tries to capitalize on the loopholes, it is obvious to me that this would happen. Money is already flowing that direction. My guess is the art registries will launch as soon as the law passes or shortly thereafter, unless some miracle happens. Smart buggers but not smart enough. Imagine the photographers who take five hundred images a day or more...ugh. Artists cannot pay for this service...at least those I know who produce quantities of work...and none should have to.

Anyway, that problem is now solved in low tech fashion here: http://www.conceptart.org/search/ind...rumid=5&page=1 ConceptArt.Org has created a search system for locating art and artists, essentially cutting off the paid registry industry before they can even get off the ground. Click the images and find the original thread. Click the artist name and contact them directly. This also keeps these readying companies from acting as middlemen, between the searcher and the artist who they wish to hire. There is no room for that in our business.

I designed and we rebuilt all our databases and set up conceptart.org servers to handle up to 200 terabytes of secure storage. This service is entirely free and is a gift to the community from ConceptArt.Org. It is also nice as you can now browse through the images on the site very quickly. What used to take a week to view, now takes hours. Released in this viewer are five hundred thousand images. More will be added shortly. When you post on the forums your images go in the copyright search registry we created. It is all automated for you. Just keep doing as you do and at least your work can be found. The watermark will be site wide, and contains the appropriate information.

You can search best of (five star threads) for fun...or from each forum if you click the "forums images" text tab...there are a ton of ways to look for stuff. key wording is in progress. That is the final piece of the basic search tool.

The idea is to simply kick the entire start up registry industry in the nuts before it can even learn to stand up by taking action ourselves.

Anyway...just some thoughts...my vision for where this heads is deeper than this but it should at least help some, i hope. I spoke at length with Brad Holland and others involved in putting up the fight for artists rights and we have solved two of the biggest issues.

1. That artists could have to pay for their works to be registered and protected in the US, and there is evidence supporting this.
2. That these companies would then act as middle men between prospective clients searching the databases by requiring the company or person searching to pay them for your information.

Obviously, these problems must not happen.

There are other problems being solved, as related to this bill and this is just a first step in the best defense is a good offense mentality when it comes to artist rights. If we sit around and wait for someone to provide these solutions it is going to cost us dearly. Instead, we are taking action.

Happy New Year too!

Jason Manley
Founding Director
ConceptArt.Org
President
www.massiveblack.com

I would urge the ArtSpots admins to consider doing something similar, and to pass on to the other art communities the idea of the same. Set up your own registry as part of the community benefits!

For those intrested:
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/
http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

The current (as of this point?) documents:
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan/The_Shawn_Bentley_Orphan_Works_Act_of_2008.pdf
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan/The_Orphan_Works_Act_of_2008.pdf

As I read I add a few ideas from what I understand. Mind you I'm not a lawyer. If yuo want to go professional I'd suggest talking to a lawyer.

~
Compensation: Far as I can tell does not include forcing the infringer to pay for court costs, lawyers fees, etc. You get the amount that you might get from a normal "commission" in regards to the work itself.

** Mind you any "works for hire" (IE: Commissions where in you have a contract agreement - more or less - go read the copyright site for more), are the responsibility of the commissioning party/organization/individual/etc because the piece(s) is(are) by law theirs, not the artist's.
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-definitions.html#made_for_hire
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ9.html

So you get to pay the lawyers and court costs out of pocket, AFTER you get the money for the normal amount you'd charge for use of said piece. If you'd get anything at all. So unlike OTHER civil action suits, or such court suits, wherein the guilty party pays for everything PLUS compensation...... this seems as if you don't get that either.

I'm not sure on this one. Not being a lawyer makes this difficult to determine what you can tag an infringer with money-wise.

~~~~

Art communities that say you CAN'T put a copyright watermark, or some other kind of contact on your work (for online galleries) may be putting artists at risk. Again this isn't very clear.

Being so vague, or "politic babble" makes for massive loopholes. :P This can harm the artistic communities in general for various different reasons. :P

~~~

The one good thing is that the Register of Copyright must put out a list of "dilligent search practices" that those who wish to use "orphaned works" must follow. I say its a good thing because we as a whole can influence what they say if we put our collective butts in gear.

~~~

The more I read up on the compensation portion of this the more I scowl. Half from not fully understanding and half from the way it sounds to me.

Like this aspect: From what it reads - the infringer cannot be told to stop work on works that use an artist's works if they are already in process. (( "May not restrain the infringer's continued preparation or use of new of that new work" (In which the infringed artwork is used.) )) That they have to pay the artist compensation for these added "projects", and Attribution if requested by owner.

I could be very very worng in thinking this, but this seems to me to say that "Once an artwork is taken and used they can keep using it as long as they pay the artist". o.O Buh?

~~~~
Searchable Databases:

Registry databases must be certified by the Registry of copyrights (good and bad here). This is especially true if the Registry of Copyright Offices charges for this feature. Companies and individuals may use this against registries that aren't certified, that they can't be used for "reasonable searches".

If the Offices don't charge but enforce a waiting list, the same problem could crop up for registries that are waiting to be certified. (Think of all the "fake" search engine pages and link farms..., doing this to get more site hits... but as a fake registry. Think how LONG that wait could be!!))

Anyone on here a lawyer? Or knows a lawyer that might help us figure this out? ;)

Hmm I seem to remember a barrister on here. Someone with a bunny-icon.

EDIT:
Ah the nick just came to me - Kynloid (or something very similar).

Echos of the past, apparently.

As it was proposed in the last session of Congress and did not pass, the bill isn't going to make it into law, if what I am reading is correct according to http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-2913

... now, that doesn't mean it won't rear it's head again. If the California Prop 8 could rear it's head twice, you can almost guarantee this one will make it's way into a new bill in the upcoming session. It is worth keeping a vigilant eye out for a similar bill again.

Sudan Red said:

Hmm I seem to remember a barrister on here. Someone with a bunny-icon.

lol, no disrespect to the forum member in question but that phrase out of context just tickles me. If this was LJ I would be metaquoting it right now. ;o)

Back to the original post I hope that this doesn't become reality and I applaud conceptart.org for trying to find a way around this. The thought of them turning an artists rights on it's head so others can profit from it is just ludicrous.

Radioactive Chicken said:

lol, no disrespect to the forum member in question but that phrase out of context just tickles me. If this was LJ I would be metaquoting it right now. ;o)

Er... huh?

What worries me isn't simply the fact that we my have to pay for protection, but that it's sometimes amateurishly easy to manipulate an image that has an origin and signature into one that looks copyright free. In any case I hope that things will work out but am not holding my breath.