Thanks to Claudine I found out about the Orphan Works Act of 2008 which is being introduced to the U.S. house and Senate.
From Drawn :
“Currently, copyright is granted the moment a work is created. This new Orphan Works legislation proposes a change in U.S. copyright that would require artists, illustrators, photographers, and any creative individual to actively maintain and defend their copyright by registering each and every work with privatized registrars. Failure to do so would leave everything you’ve ever created as an artist up for grabs by anyone who wanted to copy, reproduce, create derivative works of, or flat out steal your work since the act defines an “orphan work” as any work where the author is unidentifiable or unlocatable, and applies to both published and unpublished works, U.S. and foreign, regardless of age.
This is completely contradictory with international copyright standards and is ethically, logistically, and financially bonkers.
The two bills are S.2913, the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 and H.R.5889, the Orphan Works Act of 2008. Markup of the Bentley bill is this Thursday, May 15, and it’s not too late to voice your concerns.”
US citizens can voice their displeasure by filling in these forms provided by the Illustrators Partnership and your opposition will automatically be e-mailed to your members of Congress.
Non-U.S. citizens can simply FAX these letters to the various U.S. agencies’ numbers provided.
This is PURE outrage — if someone forgot to initial their artwork, it simply means that it is up for grabs and it’s okay to reproduce them.
I mean, if your kid were to be alone somewhere without a name tag, can someone just take him away and make the kid theirs? It’s NUTS!
