Oct/094
The Orphan Works Bill
I wanted to take a minute to address a big issue facing artists that surprisingly few people know about.
In 2006, a bill was introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives called the Orphan Works Bill. It was later withdrawn, then reintroduced in 2008, and made it on to Congress at that time.
An orphan work is a copyright work where it is difficult or impossible to contact the copyright holder. When do you own a copyright? Under current law, as soon as you make your work. Your copyright lasts until the day you die, plus 70 years in the U.S., sometimes longer depending on various factors.
The Orphan Works Bill calls for the creation of a database of all Pictorial, Graphic and Sculptural Works (Section 3). It also allows people to use potentially copyrighted material so long as they do a “reasonable” search for the owner. If they cannot find the copyright owner, the work becomes public domain.
The underlying purpose here is that you will have to PAY to register your work on this mysterious database or people will be allowed to use it, claiming a reasonable search. Under current law, you do not have to register a copyright to benefit from protection, but you can, and if you can you can seek statutory damages if your copyright is infringed.
You can see why so many artists are opposed to this bill. For people who only produce a few or a dozen works per year, registering them might not be too costly, but imagine the cost for photographers, who might produce hundreds of pictures on a weekly basis.
So what can you do?
View the bill.
Read the proposed amendments.
Join a group in support of stopping or amending the bill.
Spread the word among your artist friends. The more people that know about this, the better.
Call you legislator and tell them why this would negatively impact you.
We cannot afford to be in the dark on this one, so I hope everyone will take a personal interest and get involved in this.
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2:19 am on November 1st, 2009
I just wanted to say how helpful your site is Caroline!
lots of good info for n00bs like me!
(booo to orphan works bill!)
9:04 am on November 12th, 2009
I’ve been seeing this float around the internet for years now. While it definitely has the potential for disaster I… can’t seem to get very worried about it? Two of my favorite and most respected artists (Neil Gaiman and Ursula Vernon) posted about it ages back and didn’t seem particularly worried, and I’m going to go with them.
(Links:
Neil Gaiman http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/04/tulsa-june-28-and-suchlike.html
Ursula V http://ursulav.livejournal.com/758643.html)
Also, I thought there was no current bill on this? Both of those links are from 08, and again, neither seem terribly worried. Unless there’s a current bill still being discussed (and considering how busy Congress is with healthcare, I’m pretty sure this would fall through the cracks) I’m not worried.
I feel like too much of this issue is crazy hysteria and not enough fact-checking. This has potential to be problematic, but it’s not a huge problem now, so people need to stop freaking out.
1:37 pm on November 15th, 2009
While I understand not wanting to freak out, I disagree that this bill is not worth talking about and spreading around to your friends.
This bill has the power to change copyright law as we know it- that is huge!
What I am concerned about is not the crazed “my work will be stolen!” mentality, but rather the possibility of a creation of a database that will force all artists to submit, plus a fee, in order to have their works considered protected by copyright.
This bill was introduced in May of 2008, was not voted on that year, and will likely be pushed forward again.
While Congress is busy with health care, I don’t think that means that artists should forget about it.
Hysteria is useless, I agree, but informing yourself about how potential major changes to the law affect you and your business is important.
2:35 pm on November 22nd, 2009
Interesting article, Caroline, and spreading the facts about this bill is important. There’s also one aspect not covered when I read about this Orphan Bill: how will it affect artists from other countries?
What if a ‘reasonable’ search for the owner does not find anything about a work that may be from a foreign artist? Should he put his work on this database or is he protected by the copyright laws on his country? What about employers from other countries using american artists’ works?
It really does have the potential to be problematic.
André.