This You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art

from Animation World Magazine

Visit this article online at ([link] awn. com/?article_no=3605)

Mind Your Business: You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art

Mark Simon is mad as hell and, in this month's "Mind Your Business," he tells you why you should be too

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 United States, our country is about to break with the rest of the world, again, and take your rights away.



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 Europe.



I was speaking recently with Roger Dean, the famed artist of the Yes album covers, and he is greatly concerned with what will happen if Orphan Works bills become law

"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 U.S. and U.K. governments are changing the copyright laws to protect the infringer instead of the creator. This is unjust, culturally destructive and commercial lunacy.



This will not just hurt millions of artists around the world

"On the other side of the coin, what argument will a U.S. court have with a Chinese company that insists it did its research in China and found nothing? If the cost of this is onerous for a U.S.

-based artist, what will it be like for artists and small businesses in emergent economies?"

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 Hollywood fighting with China to protect copyrights and stop the pirating of DVDs.



Our government has worked with the studios to protect their investment

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:

Go to [link] usa.
gov/Contact/Elected. shtml to quickly find the phone number, address and e-mail of every U.S. senator, U.S.

representative, governor and state 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 aga
was sent to me on yahoo....I'm not sure were to go with it, but it is relevant to us all.