"Orphan Works" poll

[felipe]

I'm picking up on Simons idea to post a poll about the "Orphan Works" bill, to raise further attention on the matter, and to see where we stand here.

WHAT IS ORPHAN WORKS?
In short, Orphan works is meant to facilitate the appropriation of photos, illustrations etc. that appear without credit lines and whose authors cannot be found through a "good faith, reasonably diligent search". The use of such an "orphaned work" would then be FREE, unless the copyright owner comes forward.

If this bill is passed on it would affect all of us, US citizen or not, and considering the widespread use of uncredited images, especially on the internet, it's definetly no matter to be taken lightly at all!

If you want to read up on the bill itself, please visit this thread:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22735

WHAT CAN I DO?
We're sending off the petition this wednesday and the bill is very likely to be promulgated within the week. Be aware of the urgency of the situation! We need to ACT NOW, and the easiest way to do so is to simply SIGN our petition.

You WILL be affected, if you take pictures or paint pictures, for money or for fun, be it in the US or anywhere else, so it might pay off to speak up.

The final draft can be found over here:
http://www.lightstalkers.org/final-draft-copyright-petition-for-those-who-have-not-signed-yet

Once again, if you don't want to sign up on lightstalkers, I'll glady forward your signatures to Jon.
Either drop me an email at ow@philsamhaber.com or just send a PM that's all it takes!

Now we would like to know how you feel about the amendment, what you already did/plan to do about it, and obviously if you (don't) feel affected by it.
There have been a tremendous amount of lurkers on the "Urgent call to.." thread, and we are trying to understand why so few people are speaking up, and why even fever have given their voice to the LS (lightstalkers) petition.

There won't be any calling names and pointing fingers, I suppose we're all mature enough to be aware of the responsibility of our actions, and conscious of the reasoning behind them.

Thanks for the effort, I hope we can make a difference!
Cheers,
Phil

P.S.:
You can choose more than one answer, if you feel there's something missing from the list, please tell me.

 

[felipe]

I reposted the whole thread (since you can't just edit polls...duh), the five people who voted, please vote again!

Thanks Rich for pointing out the public poll thing, must have been the late hour yesterday. 🙂

Vote at will, no one will see who you are!!

Cheers,
Phil

 

[jaapv]

I wish the links would work.....As of now, I haven''t the foggiest idea what you are talking about.

 

[felipe]

My bad, updated the link. Apologies!

Phil

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

Two votes including mine which is a shame.

 

[Ken Ford]

I wrote both of my Senators and my Rep a few months back, and only one has responded so far...

 

[Pherdinand]

"You WILL be affected, and it doesn't matter if you take pictures or paint pictures, for money or for fun, be it in the US or anywhere else, so it might pay off to speak up"
I don't get the point of the above poll with such a description. You say it WILL affect me and you ask me if i think it will affect me???
Anyway, the world is crazy enough already.

 

[jaapv]

It won't affect me or anybody who takes the small trouble of embedding his copyright and an url (I use the one of my gallery) in his file. about 10 sec. work in Photoshop. It is also possible to create a copyright brush, which will put a visible copyright on your photo with one click.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

I think Phil's point is he like to know how you feel about the forthcoming bill.
If the bill is passed it will affect you- it will affect everyone. Isn't it better to try to do something about this rather than stand by and let it happen? 😡

It may be a "crazy world" but I think it's a world worth photographing and retaining the copyright to the pictures you make of it.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

It won't affect me or anybody who takes the small trouble of embedding his copyright and an url (I use the one of my gallery) in his file. about 10 sec. work in Photoshop. It is also possible to create a copyright brush, which will put a visible copyright on your photo with one click.

interesting but what happens if someone just crops out the copyright info?

 

[Pherdinand]

i'm not sure it will affect me. However by the "crazy enough world" i was meaning that it is crazy enough without further bills, amendments, regulations and such.
But I'm getting a little bit anarchistic nowadays, or maybe i always was??

 

[jaapv]

interesting but what happens if someone just crops out the copyright info?

That is called fraud and is outside the scope of this law. The embedded information is not lost that easily, you'd have to strip all exif information and that is fraud again.If you feel really protective about your work you can even put a transparant watermark across the centre which cannot be removed at all.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

Ok for those of you who don't think it will affect you how about adding your names to the petition on behalf of those who don't have access to a copyright piece of software or are unable to protect their images such as painters etc. RFF is supposedly a community so surely if all of its members were to sign alongside the 8000 members of Lightstalkers it would at least be a step in the right direction?

 

[jaapv]

Ok for those of you who don't think it will affect you how about adding your names to the petition on behalf of those who don't have access to a copyright piece of software or are unable to protect their images such as painters etc. RFF is supposedly a community so surely if all of its members were to sign alongside the 8000 members of Lightstalkers it would at least be a step in the right direction?

I support your quest as a fellow anarchist. But all digital camera's worth their salt come with at least Photoshop Elements, which has copyright options in the program.

 

[Pherdinand]

OK, you can count on me for signing the stuff, but i keep my vote here as 'i think it won't affect me'.
And nope, that's not a contradiction!

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

I support your quest as a fellow anarchist. But all digital camera's worth their salt come with at least Photoshop Elements, which has copyright options in the program.

Jaapv -that's comforting for those with a digital setup and a computer - what about those that don't? I'm not getting into one here just trying to give a voice to those who are less fortunate than ourselves or are image makers in a different medium.

 

[jaapv]

I see where you are coming from and I support you, but I do think the main problem will be with stuff floating around on the Internet, and that can be reasonably protected.

 

[Simon Larbalestier]

I hear you Jaap but i think it's not really the internet - it's all the below the line advertising and the cheap publishers that cut corners and illustrators are especially at risk in these instances.

 

[f/stopblues]

I've been reading though all this info since this morning, since I wasn't familiar with it before. I just added my name to the petition on Lightstalkers. Thanks for getting this out!

 

[felipe]

Everybody, thanks to all of you who contributed so far, keep the posts coming!

Ken, while it may be frustrating to find out that the people who should care actually don't, it's important folks like you keep reminding them to DO so! But who am I telling this to..

One has to consider that the basic concept of Orphan Works sounds reasonable enough for anybody not too familiar with the creative industry, and while it is their duty to act in favor of the people (is it?) and the constitution, one can't blame them for not knowing every detailed insight or even the most obvious (to us!) facts.
--

Jaapv, I suppose you missed the links in the other thread?. I'm not very good at explaining things, but the information provided should make it pretty clear that you are going to be affected.

That is, unless you are one of the brave people with a diagonal 120pt Helvetica Bold signature in their pictures. In that case I'm not going to debate this any further, go to hell ;-)

But back to your suggestion:
I agree it's easy to add metadata to a picture, but it's even easier to strip it from the image, even by a complete dummy.

It's obvious that the person ripping your image is culpable, but that's not the point. If someone else finds the pirated picture, conveniently ripped from any credit lines, placed out of context, with no way to locate the copyright holder, your picture is orphaned work.
I am not a lawyer, but you will need one if you want to sue the person who's now using your picture.
Your compensation though, would be limited to a normal liscensing fee, not inlcuding attorneys fees, with no possibility to claim additional damages.
--

But infact this is only the icing on the cake. Please read the links and look arround a bit, I'm not going to explain these things any furthe. The information is readily available, in conveniently premade opinions with plausible reasoning behind them or as the raw deal on all the .gov sites.

Finally, as Simon has already said, even if you don't see yourself affected or don't have to live off your images, there is no reason NOT to make a point and sign that LS petition, call up reps and congressmen, publish articles, just spread the word!

You don't have to be an anarchist, or an especially social and altruistic human being to understand that it's B.A.D. when the government cuts down on your rights. Considering the potential commercial interest (or make that influence) behind this bill, hell even more of a reason to man the speakers!

Thanks for your opinions and especially the signatures, and again, keep the posts coming!

Cheers,
Phil