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Art theft might be legalized in the US
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This new law being proposed through the US Congress will affect everyone who creates artwork. If passed, bill (number S.2913) will be known as "Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act", and it deals with copyrighted artwork whose creator "could not be found".

In a nutshell, under this new law, anything created by anybody (dead or alive) can be used without legal penalties by thieves for as long as they prove that they made a "diligent effort" to find the copyright owner. LOL

The only protection left to content creators (artists) is to register each and every one of your artwork with the US Copyright Office. As an example, my little dA gallery has about 452 pieces posted since 2005, and if registering each of them would cost let's say $2, I would be paying like $904 dollars just to avoid being ripped off clean by art thieves. Needless to say that people with larger galleries may not be able to afford protecting all of their artwork under this new law. Just for the record, registering your artwork is optional, but without it you are fully exposed to "legalized" art theft exploitation.

Just as a side note, I am a small fry artist with a small gallery, but I already started 2008 in early January with a massive art theft from a Canadian website where pictures stolen from my gallery were being resized, contents edited/removed/added, terribly recompressed and reposted without my knowledge. It took me weeks to get it removed because the webmaster spoke only French and I needed a translator.

The example above was just about an innocent girl who thought I wouldn't mind having my artwork modified and reposted elsewhere without permission. Now think of other people with real bad intentions stealing artwork and being protected by the US law. Under the new bill, copyright infringers (including corporations) would be excused from significant damages if they could prove that they "made a diligent effort" to locate the copyright owner.

Am I the only one thinking this will just "protect" art thieves and penalize us artists by making us pay to be protected and making it difficult to persecute those who steal from us?

Learn more about this bill at [link] where you can read the actual bill.