The Orphan's Works bill is not designed to take away your artistic freedom at all.

I have been talking to a UK copyright lawyer,a relative of mine, and he has tried to give me a basic overview.

First of all, you do still get automatic copyright, which by the way lasts for your lifetime and then 70 years afterwards, where it goes to your family. This has been in effect for a long time, and is specified in international copyright treaties. The only time this isn't in effect is if you have sold your work to someone else, for example a recording company or film company.

The point of this legislation is that if, and only if, someone cannot contact you to use your material, then they can use it, and you may ask for compensation afterwards if they ever use it again. There is no need to apply for copyright on your work, and people must only use the Orphan's Work as a last resort - not to do so would be a serious breach of major international copyright treaties.

Lets say, for example, you write a song and post it on YouTube, and a film director wants to use it in his soundtrack in the film. If you haven't left an address or email or ANY form of contact, he would be entitled to use it in his film without asking you. However, you may then claim compensation afterwards - that is, if he wanted to release the soundtrack CD, with your song on it, and you had then contacted him, he would have to pay you royalties, as would anyone else who used it, as you STILL have copyright on it.

There is NO WAY you have lost copyright and have to purchase it. As I said before, this would be a serious breach of copyright treaties and also human rights.

This also applies to the USA and most of the world. Orphan's Work bill is most definately NOT legalised art theft. It's just trying to make life easier for companies who try to use material and have to spend thousands just tracking down and clearing use of artistic material.

The USA and most other countries are signed to major international copyright treaties that inhibit the use of copyrighted work, and claiming it as their own. In other words, if someone took your art without even trying to contact you and give you some form of credit, they are breaking these laws and face large penalties.

There is no way that art theifs can use this bill, because they are doing something else entirely - they are taking your work and claiming it as their own, which is highly illegal and doesn't come under this bill.

So, even if this bill is passed, it won't affect you in the way you think it will.