"Orphan Works" Petition

[felipe s.]

<p>Some of you may already be familiar with the Orphan works bill

which as of the moment is still pending in US congress.</p>

 

<p>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.</p>

 

<p>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!</p>

 

<p>If you want to read up on the details of the OW bill , here are

some starting points:<br>

<a

href="http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/">http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/<a/><br>

<a

href="http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1847">http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1847</a><br>

<a

href="http://www.asmp.org/news/spec2006/orphan_update.php">http://www.asmp.org/news/spec2006/orphan_update.php</a><br><br>

 

<a

href="http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002383134">http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002383134</a><br>

<a

href="http://nikondigital.org/dps/dps-v-4-08.htm">http://nikondigital.org/dps/dps-v-4-08.htm</a></p>

 

<p>Here are the latest news:<br>

<a

href="http://lightstalkers.org/about-the-copyright-issue-20060507#25416">http://lightstalkers.org/about-the-copyright-issue-20060507#25416</a><p><br>

 

 

<p>WHAT HAS BEEN DONE:</p>

<p>There has already been an ASMP organized fax campaign, which

according to them was effective, several other organisations have made

similar calls, and quite a few have been monitoring the problem since

the amendment was proposed in january 2005, but there is no reason to

lower the pressure.

</p>

 

<p><br>

WHAT CAN WE DO:</p>

 

<p>Oppose it! At the moment, Lightstalkers.org members are putting

together a petition oposing the OW amendment, with close to 300

signees so far and counting. This might well be the last chance to

muster forces and speak up against the bill, so we should take it!</p>

 

<p>You can find the (supposed) prolouge over here:</p>

<a

href="http://www.lightstalkers.org/prologue-for-the-orphan-works-petition-20060428">http://www.lightstalkers.org/prologue-for-the-orphan-works-petition-20060428</a>

 

<p>And get involved here:</p>

<a

href="http://www.lightstalkers.org/to-all-ls-members-re:-your-copyright-protection-20060425">http://www.lightstalkers.org/to-all-ls-members-re:-your-copyright-protection-20060425</a>

<br>

 

<p>If you don't want to sign up on Lightstalkers, just drop me a

pm/email and I'll gladly forward your signatures to Gayle, John or

Sion.</p>

 

<p>Also, please don't hesitate to contact any organisations,

associations, colleagues, students or coworkers, etc., we need to make

people aware of this and take action NOW, as this thing is being

formed into an actual bill as we're talking.</p>

 

<p>Finally, if you have any questions please email/pm me or simply ask

John or Gayle directly over at ls, we'll be glad to help out as we

can!</p>

 

<p>Cheers,<br>

Phil</p>

 

<p>(I hope this is the appropriate forum for this, if not, please move

it to wherever it belongs.)</p>

[john lehman, college alask]

Better yet, support the bill! It is intended, among other things, to facilitate the creation of digital archives and libraries, as well as academic and research use of publications whose owners can no longer be found (which includes a great deal of historical material for most of the 20th century). It is needed in part because the digital millenium copyright act imposed such restrictions on fair use that the use of much material whose owners can no longer be located is frozen for the better part of the next century. The bill has already been modified to protect copyright owners against intentional abuse.

[jimstrutz]

There is always two sides...

[felipe s.]

<p>John, what you wrote is obviously the exact description of what the Orphan Works Amendment was/is inteded to be, thank you very much.</p>

 

From your text however, I can't really understand why you feel obliged to support the legislation.<br>

Would you care to enlighten the rest of us with your source of information and a date and elaborate this further?</p>

 

<p>I absolutely agree that there's always two sides, it's good to have another point of view, but so far "the other side" only stated the obvious.</p>

 

Thanks for your input, keep it coming!<br>

Cheers,<br>

Phil

[felipe s.]

Does anybody even care about their copyrights or are you just planning to sit this out until the bill is passed?

[simon larbalestier]

Phil thanks for posting this

i think the long term implications of this are very serious and i would urge everyone on Pnet

to sign the petition on the LS site if only to show support against this bill regardless if you

make a living from visual media or not.

 

Simon

[keith turrill]

<p>I have been very careful about registering US copyrights and carefully marking annotating images with authorship. As someone who promotes and sells images on the internet, the issue does bother me.</p>

<p>To create an <i>"orphan work,"</i> all somebody has to do is crop off a copyright note and monogram and publish it on their own blog. As far as I am concerned, fair use laws are not strict enough.</p>

[keith turrill]

I have some old phonograph records in my basement some with illegible labels on them. I don't think that the big-money record companies and recording industry association (RIAA) would allow their work to be orphaned.