Artists Read This

[thdrgngrl]

The United States Government is trying to take away our copyright


http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&column=MindBiz&article_no=3605

EDIT:

hm. people are saying the information in the article is from a bill two years ago- and it was dismissed,  and the reason theres concern about it -now- is there was a recent congressional hearing that might

Comments

[korth]

http://news.deviantart.com/article/46375/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphaned_works

Basically.
It means if you don't sign your art/they can't find out who made it - it's considered "Orphaned" and free to use.

[thdrgngrl]

signed or not signed actually doesn't have anything to do with it hon, just 'reasonable effort' put into finding someone- and being forced to pay for an official copy right rather than having an -intrinsic- copy right, but as per my edit, this bill is old news, and didn't get passed

[amazingadrian]

Thank heavens. Some bills that come through just make your head a-splode. What were they thinking?!

[ne]

"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. "

It's been beaten or delayed for the past two years, not that it has been defeated and until that happens it still stands a chance of passing.

[ne]

Who said it's old news?
The date on that article is April 12, 2008 and the guy is a decent journalist so given that I'd think he'd know if it was old news?
Either way it's still a good thing to write to your congressman about just in case.

Hell the only way I can copyright my stuff is to have that intrinsic right of copyright that happens when you birth a piece of artwork into the world, same with some others I know, more so with some than others as some are uber prolific.

And also if there were numerous agencies that you would have to file with, not just the one, and it would be mandatory to do so, a LOT of us would not be able to be artists anymore it would just not be able to make ANY profit whatsoever as all of our money would be going into all these agencies pockets.

[evilcarp]

http://kynn.livejournal.com/799971.html

Here's someone who put together pretty much all the info that's out there on this currently dead bill.

[ne]

In reading that and everything else it's not dead yet, they have reworded a new draft of it and will try and introduce THAT one.
thank you for the info though as I will post it along with everything else as all sides need to be heard and I could'nt for the life of me find the original bill.