COPYRIGHT STORM ON THE HORIZON - Follow Up
| To: James Schot <james@bestschot.com>
From: Illustrators Partnership <illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com> Subject: Fwd: Orphan Works: Behind the Talking Points |
FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP
Backers of the Orphan Works bill are circulating their Talking Points:
“Neither the House nor the Senate drafts of the bill contain the word “registries,” [they write] but rather they require users to search non-governmental databases of copyrighted works. The purpose of any database is not meant to take the place of copyright registration, but to have a way to search for visual images. Any participation in such a database would be voluntary.”
But this doesn’t mean what it appears to say. Take it point by point:
Talking Point #1: “Neither the House nor the Senate drafts of the bill contain the word ‘registries.’ ”
Response: Correct. They contain the word “databases,” a synonym:
Registry: register: an official written record of names or events or transactions
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Database: A database is a structured collection of records or data
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database
Q: Why a synonym?
A: Because international copyright law forbids member countries to impose registries as a condition of protecting copyrights: Berne/Article 5(2) ”The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality.” http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/5.html
In other words, if they used the word “registries” in the bills, it would be a red flag to other countries that the US is flirting with non-compliance with international treaties.
Talking Point #2: “…rather they [the bills] require users to search non-governmental databases of copyrighted works.”
Response: Non-governmental databases” means databases maintained in the private sector.
For users to find your work in these commercial databases, your work would first have to be in the database.
Work not in the database would be orphaned.
Talking Point #3: “Any participation in such a database would be voluntary.”
Response: Congress cannot pass a bill making registration mandatory because that would violate Berne/Article 5(2).
And that would state explicitly to other countries that the US no longer intends to honor its international agreements.
There are red flags all over these talking points.
Summing up: The Orphan Work bills would mandate the creation of registries by commercial interests.
You would not be legally forced to place your work with these for-profit registries.
But failure to do so would orphan your work.
The deceptive talking points accompanying this bill are another red flag.
— Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership
Take Action/ Write Congress http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/
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COPYRIGHT STORM ON THE HORIZON?
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This article raises concerns, and if true I would like in collaboration with EGN (the ESSENTIAL GALLERY NETWORK) spread the word to stop any weakening of the 1983 Copyright Laws, but I am trying to confirm the issues raised. If anyone out there has further information, please add on.
Mind Your Business: You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art As you know, I usually handle the subjects in my articles with a sense of humor. That is not the case this month. I find nothing funny about the new Orphan Works legislation that is before Congress. In fact, it PISSES ME OFF! As an artist, you have to read this article or you could lose everything you’ve ever created! An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released their copyright, whether on purpose, by passage of time, or by lack of proper registration. In the same way that an orphaned child loses the protection of his or her parents, your creative work can become an orphan for others to use without your permission. If you don’t like to read long articles, you will miss incredibly important information that will affect the rest of your career as an artist. You should at least skip to the end to find the link for a fantastic interview with the Illustrators’ Partnership about how you are about to lose ownership of your own artwork. Currently, you don’t have to register your artwork to own the copyright. You own a copyright as soon as you create something. International law also supports this. Right now, registration allows you to sue for damages, in addition to fair value. What makes me so MAD about this new legislation is that it legalizes THEFT! The only people who benefit from this are those who want to make use of our creative works without paying for them and large companies who will run the new private copyright registries. These registries are companies that you would be forced to pay in order to register every single image, photo, sketch or creative work. It is currently against international law to coerce people to register their work for copyright because there are so many inherent problems with it. But because big business can push through laws in the With the tens of millions of photos and pieces of artwork created each year, the bounty for forcing everyone to pay a registration fee would be enormous. We lose our rights and our creations, and someone else makes money at our expense. This includes every sketch, painting, photo, sculpture, drawing, video, song and every other type of creative endeavor. All of it is at risk! If the Orphan Works legislation passes, you and I and all creatives will lose virtually all the rights to not only our future work but to everything we’ve created over the past 34 years, unless we register it with the new, untested and privately run (by the friends and cronies of the U.S. government) registries. Even then, there is no guarantee that someone wishing to steal your personal creations won’t successfully call your work an orphan work, and then legally use it for free. In short, if Congress passes this law, YOU WILL LOSE THE RIGHT TO MAKE MONEY FROM YOUR OWN CREATIONS! Why is this allowed to happen? APATHY and MONEY. Artists have apathy and corporations have money. We need to be heard in order to protect our incomes, our creations and our careers. GET OFF YOUR ASS! That means writing letters to our congressmen and representatives. That means voicing your opinion about how we need copyright protection, as we’ve had since 1976, that protects everything we create from the moment we create it. This is the case around the world. However, an Orphan Works bill is also in the works in “This will devastate the livelihood of artists, photographers and designers in a number of ways,” Dean says. “That at the behest of a few hugely rich corporations who got rich by selling art that they played no part in the making of, the “On the other side of the coin, what argument will a If an artist whose work is as famous as Roger Dean’s is concerned with this legislation, it should be of great concern for all of us. The people, associations and companies behind the Orphan Works bill state that orphaned works have no value. If that were true, no one would want them. However, these same companies DO WANT your work, they just don’t want to pay for it. If someone wants something, IT HAS VALUE. It’s pretty simple. Some major art and photography associations, or I should say, the managers of the associations, support this bill. The reason they support it is that they will operate some of the registries and stand to make a lot of money. Some have already been given millions of dollars by the Library of Congress. Follow the money and you will see why some groups support this bill of legalized theft of everything you have ever created. Two proponents of this new legislation are Corbis and Getty Images. They are large stock photo and stock art companies. They sell art and photos inexpensively and are trying to build giant royalty-free databases. Do you see how they could benefit from considering most works of art in the world orphans? Do you know who owns Corbis? Bill Gates. He doesn’t do anything unless it can make a huge amount of money. Helping you lose the copyright to your art is big business for Gates. For years we’ve heard of Our government is NOW WORKING AGAINST US by allowing our own fellow citizens TO STEAL OUR CREATIVE WORKS. It will be easy for them to get away with it unless we make ourselves heard. Your calls and letters do work. I’ve seen many instances in which a single letter made a difference in public policy. Tens of thousands of calls and letters help even more. This is not empty talk. I have written letters to my congressmen and I will do so again. I do what I can to let every creator know about terrible legislation like this… thus you are reading articles like this one and you can listen to interviews I’ve posted online. CONTACT YOUR LEGISLATOR: Forward this article to every creator you know and urge them to take a moment to protect their very livelihood. I am giving everyone the right to reprint this article in any form to help spread the word to protect our creative rights. Instead of sitting around watching TV tonight, TiVo that show, write a letter and make yourself heard. Letters to our government officials don’t have to be long, but they should be heartfelt. A good story helps. Tell them who you are, how this legislation negatively affects you and that you want them to vote against the Orphan Works legislation. It’s that easy! If you don’t, you will have only yourself to blame when you see other people making money from your art and you don’t see a dime. Spider-Man comic artist Alex Saviuk is also concerned about the loss of copyright protection. “When I found out all the negative aspects of the new legislation, it would almost behoove us to want to do something else for a living,” says Saviuk. “If we would have to register with all the different companies, we would never be able to make a living.” “It would be impossible for me to register all my art,” continues Saviuk. “It would put me out of business.” You can listen to my complete interview with Alex online. Think this doesn’t apply to you? Maybe you don’t license your artwork? How about this? Photos on the internet could be orphaned. With tens of millions of photos shared online with services like Flickr, Shutterfly and Snapfish, there is a huge opportunity for unauthorized use of your photos… legally. You could see photos you take of your family and kids, or of a family vacation, used in a magazine or newspaper without your permission or payment to you. You would have to pay to register your photos, all of them, in every new registry in order to protect them. Say the average person takes 300 photos per year (I take a lot more than that). If a registry only charges $5 per image, that is a whopping $1,500 to protect your photos that are protected automatically under the current laws. If there are three registries, protecting your images could cost an amazing $4,500. Not to mention the time it would take to register every photo you take. Plus, you will also have to place your copyright sign on every photo. That’s not including all your art, sketches, paintings, 3D models, animations, etc. Do you really have all that extra time and money? Plus, even if you do register, the people stealing your work can still claim it was orphaned and, unless you fight them, they win. Even if you win, you may not make back your legal fees. It gets even better. Anyone can submit images, including your images. They would then be excused from any liability for infringement (also known as THEFT) unless the legitimate rights owner (you) responds within a certain period of time to grant or deny permission to use your work. That means you will also have to look through every image in every registry all the time to make sure someone is not stealing and registering your art. You could actually end up illegally using your own artwork if someone else registers it. DOES ANYONE SEE A PROBLEM WITH THIS? Do you think the U.S. Copyright Office is here to protect you from this legislation? Think again. Brad Holland of the Illustrators’ Partnership shares his notes from a recent meeting with David O. Carson, general counsel of the Copyright Office. Brad Holland: If a user can’t find a registered work at the Copyright Office, hasn’t the Copyright Office facilitated the creation of an orphaned work? David O. Carson: Copyright owners will have to register their images with private registries. BH: But what if I exercise my exclusive right of copyright and choose not to register? DOC: If you want to go ahead and create an orphan work, be my guest! This cavalier and disrespectful dialogue should have you seeing red. Who the hell does he think he is? None of this could happen with our current laws. Our current laws work and they protect us and our creations. The only people who will benefit from the copyright law change are those who can’t create work on their own or companies who stand to make a lot of money from using our works of art. They make contributions to congressmen, which is why they get what they want. We need to stand up and be heard. Every one of you need to write your senators and representatives. We have to protect our livelihoods. It’s that serious. Plus, the technologies being developed for locating visual art don’t work well enough. On “Our technology can match images, or partial information of an image, with 99% success.” A 1% margin of error is huge when you consider the millions of searches performed for art every day. That means for every million searches, 10,000 images could be orphaned. Plus, this only takes into account images registered on their system. If you have registered all your work on another system, they won’t be searched here and, even though you may have spent thousands of dollars registering your creations, a new or unused directory could orphan everything you’ve ever created. This is just one of the many reasons why INTERNATIONAL LAW FORBIDS COERCED REGISTRATION as a condition of protecting your copyright. The There are many, many other problems with the Orphan Works legislation. As a creator, YOU MUST understand what is going on. For additional information on Orphan Works developments, go to the IPA Orphan Works Resource Page for Artists. This is not something that is going to go away easily. We need to be vocal NOW! This legislation has been beaten or delayed for the past two years and they will keep trying until it passes. This is no time to be quiet and see what happens. What will happen depends on you. Send e-mails and call your congressmen. Ownership of your own creations depends on it. Roger Dean sums this up well. “Where are the colleges and universities in all this? Has the whole world gone to sleep?” GET ON ORPHAN WORKS E-MAIL LIST AUDIO INTERVIEW LINK Mark Simon is an award-winning animation producer/director and speaker. He speaks around the world on subjects about art, animation and TV production. His copyrighted companies may be found online at www.SellYourTvConceptNow.com and www.Storyboards-East.com. He may be reached at marksimonbooks@yahoo.com. Portions of this article use information and phrasing provided by the Illustrators’ Partnership. The opinions expressed in this article reflect those of the columnist and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of AWN, Inc. and its affiliates. |
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e-mail to:
illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com, NancyToteart@aol.com, Keith & Marilyn Knight <knightandcole@hotmail.com>
Being a pro-active artist I am concerned with copyright issues, but is this a red herring? I’ve been checking new copyright legislation, and I guess I am not seeing the fine print somewhere, but I have been unable to locate copyrights being weakened… if anything they are being strengthened from what I find.
If there is a legislative proposal change that a copyright can no longer be defended (today, you automatically are the copyright owner upon creation of your art as it stands by the 1983 law) without fee registering every piece of created art, that according to your article, will be controlled by profit orientated commercial companies, please tell me where I can locate these specific aspects of the legislation.
If you do not reply, I will as always stay alert, but will take your alert as a red herring.
Sincerely, James Schot
Brad Holland,
I read your piece. Could you clarify where in the proposed change in the copyright law does it spell out all creative artistic works will be required to be registered if this passes…and that private registrant companies will be set up to allow them to be in control of all this through fees.
I do not doubt this is the works, but this specific information would help when I get the word out to my large circle of artists in underscoring how dangerous this all would be to artists and the arts. Bills are so long and complex, I’m sure with an underlying intention to confuse, bury details, and leave profitable legal vagaries. In perusing the bill I easily notice there are many legal topics on proving infringements, but did not see the specifics I am here inquiring about.
Appreciate your reply
Visually yours, James
James Schot Gallery and Photography Studio
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james@jamesschotgallerystudio.com
954-564-1112
www.jamesschotgallerystudio.com
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PHOTOGRAPHIC ART: MARKETING “ILLUSIONS” IN MONOMANIACAL U.S. PHOTOGRAPHIC ART INSTITUTIONS.
Preface: This article was written and re-written by me several times since the mid nineteen-nineties. It was sometime in 1993 on vacation in South Florida when I met with an architect. My family told me of his deep interest and devotion to photography, and so I went to see him to show him my fine art photography.
It was not a warm meeting and it was followed by a ridiculing letter about my work from him. It stated how true art photography was the photography by Strand and Steiglitz (not sure if Adams, Weston and other were mentioned). Their work was ’straight’, and I guess mine was crooked. I can’t remember this persons name, but obviously he had a very limited or narrow minded view of traditional photography and this was my response to him……………………………………………………….
In August of 1997 I published a book of twenty seven creative photographs with complimentary stories titled “Illusions of Martha’s Vineyard.” It was truly an act of love, taking nine long years to complete and compile into one volume. Bound cover to cover, the completed work became an artistic product, reflecting my own trademark style of photographic skills.
With product in hand, my next great challenge was marketing. Marketing photography is particularly difficult, due in part to how the art of photography is perceived and defined. A strong market exists for celebrity photographs, historical “antique” photographs, and photographs created by pioneers in the field, and little else. The market for photographic art is, and has been for years, quite soft. It is easy to understand how this evolved.
As a result of this evolution, there’s simply too much “straight” photography. The hegemony under the banner of “straight” photography is burying the world in a broad catalogue of reproductions, while allowing a narrow view of creativity. It is stifling the growth of photography by limiting its potential as an art form.
The method of “straight” photography can be viewed as reproducing reality with a camera; something illuminated by light, ready to be exposed. Photographs with shock value and documentaries, often stoic and staged, are popular subjects, as are pictures of and by celebrities. Other themes are regional scenic and abstract images (old bikes against chipped paint walls), duplicated and copied around the world and popular only by familiarity and transparent beauty. With anthropocentric mind, these “straight” photographs are often translated by words to be inspirational, expressive of emotion, and revealing true knowledge, by explaining light, shape, or the timing being just so. They are inclusively illusions from the warehouse of individual consciousness, evolving out of the mind, having no self nature. However intellectual and impressive they may sound, most interpretations are at best inventive and arbitrary, and simply provide a subjective validation. With a few exceptions, however clever the critical spin, most “straight” photographs are not that engaging, and their interpretation rarely translates them into a meaningful, imaginative or uniquely creative work of art. Joseph Joubert said, “The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts. Illusion on a ground of truth that is the secret of fine arts.”
The hegemony of “straight” photography finds fault with my aesthetic choreography. It is manipulative. They scorn that “left” brain and loathe the technical aspect of photography. “Straight” photography can only be defined as strictly ego driven, with the assumption in their view that interpretation, private meanings, or equivalents, satisfy all photographic possibilities. I feel strongly it does not. Imagine painters minimizing the importance of canvas fabric, brush construction and size, the mixing of paints, application of varnishes, and use of technique. Are fine art photographs only made by exposure and interpretation?
I do not have the answer. I do know adjusting the shutter is one of many mechanical/scientific facets of photography. However minimal this “manipulation” may be, it is still one of many technical aspects that make photography what it is. Since its birth, traditional photography has grown through physics, mathematics, chemistry, and electronics. This has resulted in a corresponding growth of creative possibilities, some not yet imagined, that can not be dismissed. Again, photography is a product of the Industrial Revolution, and its science is part of what makes photography a unique art form. Yet many disdain this aspect of photography. Can it be that incomplete knowledge clings to narrow views? Some have an intellect not inclined grasp this aspect of photography, and a few are simply too lazy to apply themselves.
Article by James Schot pre 2000, Photographer/Author of the book “ILLUSIONS OF MARTHA’S VINEYARD,” now part of the photographic art library collection of the
The unappreciated artist remains in good company.
It has been suggested many times to me there is an unappreciative public for the arts (and thereby the artist) in the
Recognition, fame and fortune, does it really matter to an artist? Of course, it would be nice and possibly make things easier, not necessarily creatively. For me creativity has been a gut wrenching urge, sometimes painful, on the inside. Again, speaking for myself, it really has nothing to do with anything else.
Customer Service
“I still work on the principle ‘the customer is always right’ and do my up most to treat everyone with respect and appreciation for their business”, James. Admittedly there are times when following this principle is difficult, but civility and professionalism are essential business skills.
“Not a problem”….. was the response today to my inquiry for hiring an aircraft company for an aerial shoot. What kind of response is that? What has happened to ‘thank you for calling” ….”I would appreciate your business”?
Come to think of it the first company I left a message for never even called back.
Presently in March 2008, we are concerned about the economy and a possible recession or worse. Responses like “not a problem” is part of what will make a recession or worse possible. This is just shows a lack of education in etiquette. It can get far worse with people not knowing their products or caring to help you. In many places ’service’ today is awful. If Managers only knew how many stores I simply avoid now, because of terrible service.
James Schot Gallery and Photo Studio understands that service is part of the overall quality of the Fine Art Photography that is offered through the gallery and photo studio.