USA Orphan Works Proposed Legislation
Is the hidden agenda goal with this bill to basically put everything into the Public Domain right away?
At my first glance, it seemed tailored for big companies being able to take anything they find anywhere and make it their own for free and with no recourse for the actual owner because it could suddenly be public domain, though officially named Orphan Works. Yet it could potentially negatively affect large companies like Disney, Mattel, etc too … their copyrighted images could suddenly be sort of public domain more or less also.
Sure many are quite recognizable to many people - I would not be able to identify all major company images by seeing them though - there are too many. Plus the fact that I hardly ever go down the toy aisle now … I have no idea of many current products at all … I am fairly current on video games but not even on all of them … there are too many game systems and different games for me to immediately recognize all of those either.
… BUT … anyone can claim they searched and did not find the owner and Joe Public does not have to have “real proof” of anything if I read this correctly … just a claim [maybe a printout of a search on Goggle on search terms that might or might not be relevant to the image? - there are no databases at the moment] … it might seem a bit far fetched to think of Dumbo {Disney} or Barbie {Mattel} suddenly being public domain yet if I understand this bill correctly …
Joe Public uses the image on t-shirts he is selling … the company sends a cease & desist letter plus threatens a lawsuit for damages … Joe Public claims he did not know it was theirs, that he searched but could not find the owner [he is not required by law to search their "database" or website] … company goes to court … Joe Public still claims he searched and couldn’t find owner … the company does not “prove in a court of law” Joe Public knew in advance it belonged to them before using it … Joe Public sues big company for defamation of character and gets damages for them trying to stop him using their images and Joe Public uses a different image on his t-shirts.
If it is large companies [or possibly movie studios?] pushing this bill, I think they have been a bit short-sighted … they may think it won’t affect them badly and they can retain their images by being major companies with money that will go to court … but it will affect them badly probably even more than us “local not big name artists and photographers”. The companies have a lot more money to lose on this than most of us do because their images are major daily big business.
The major known artists in the Concept Art world are probably going to be hit pretty hard with this as well as old-timers like Frank Frazetta or Boris Vallejo.
This bill as proposed takes the large companies legal rights away too and gives Joe Public a “get out of jail free card with an Advance to Boardwalk and Park Place {Parker Bros., an imprint of Hasbro} train ticket” in my opinion.
From Graphic Artists Guild:
The Orphan Works Bill Revisited in 2008The Orphan Works Act of 2008″ has been released in both House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Below are links to the actual drafts of the two versions of the bill:
House Judiciary Committee, Sponsored by Rep. Howard Berman
Senate Judiciary Committee, Sponsored by Senator Patrick Leahy
Filed under: General Interest
