DEATH to Make Love Real: call your congressman on my behalf
Neil September 29th, 2008
I avoid my political views on this blog…
But this isn’t political, it’s personal - and it makes me sick to my stomach to read what the Senate has done!
This Senate is crooked and evil - and is “hotline passing” legislation to effectively hamper this business.
I’m not joking - this is Chancellor Palpatine surreal and back-door dirty on the parts of Senators Leahy and Hatch as they hotlined the Orphan Works Act. If artist’s are Jedi, this is order 66. What “Orphan Works” legislation such as this does is assume that any artwork, design, programming or copyrighted code is not copyrighted until proven otherwise.
Guilty until proven innocent - would be a mixed metaphor that fits.
Please e-mail or call your Representative today and ask him or her to oppose the adoption of S. 2913 or its language in the House. We urge you to contact your Representative as soon as possible. You can find the name and contact information for your Representative at www.visi.com/juan/congress. The list contains telephone numbers and links to send “electronic communications” to your Representative. And here is a letter that you can copy, paste, edit and send to your Representative, below. Please feel free to change the wording as you wish.
My business’s sole asset is copyrighted material and the sales revenue for licensing. If I am burdended with this legislation you will be paying the cost of registering every single image to some big corporate database before you ever get to see and enjoy it. Practical effects would mean it would take 4 weeks longer to get your wedding images, putting us back in the filmic era!
Orphan Works: The Devil’s Own Day
Never Too Busy to Pass Special Interest Legislation 9.28.08
As lawmakers struggled Friday to clean up the mess on Wall Street, sponsors of the Orphan Works Act passed more special interest legislation. Their bill would force copyright holders to subsidize giant copyright databases run by giant internet firms.
Like the companies now needing billion dollar bailouts, these copyright registries - which would theoretically contain the entire copyright wealth of the US - would presumably be “too big to fail.” Yet it’s our wealth, not theirs, the scheme would risk.
Small business owners didn’t ask for this legislation. We don’t want it and we don’t need it. Our opposition numbers have been growing daily. So Friday, the bill’s sponsors reached for the hotline.
What is Hotlining?
Critics of hotlining say “that lawmakers are essentially signing off on legislation neither they nor their staff have ever read.”
“In order for a bill to be hotlined, the Senate Majority Leader and Minority Leader must agree to pass it by unanimous consent, without a roll-call vote. The two leaders then inform Members of this agreement using special hotlines installed in each office and give Members a specified amount of time to object - in some cases as little as 15 minutes. If no objection is registered, the bill is passed.”
- Roll Call, Sept 17, 2007
In other words, a Senate bill can pass by “unanimous consent” even if some Senators don’t know about it.
The Devil’s Own Day
Senators Leahy and Hatch hotlined the Orphan Works Act twice last summer. Each time came at the end of a day, at the end of a week, near the end of a legislative session. Each time lawmakers were distracted by other issues and other plans. Each time artists rallied quickly and each time a Senator put a hold on the bill.
Friday the Senators found a new opportunity.
With lawmakers struggling to package a 700 billion dollar bailout to avert a worldwide economic meltdown, with the rest of the country focused on Presidential debates, with Washington in chaos and Congressional phone lines jammed, they hotlined an amended bill. On short notice, even the legislative aides we could reach by phone said they didn’t have time to read it. And so, while we were rushing to get out a second email blast to artists, the bill passed by “unanimous consent” - in other words, by default.
What better way to pass a bill that was drafted in secret than to pass it while nobody’s looking?
I sent the letter, slightly revised to reflect I am a friend and client of professional photographers, to Congressman Kuhl. I hope it helps!!
Orphan Works: Connect the Dots
9.30.08
1. Web firms quietly win copyright victory in Congress
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Sept 29 — As the media turned its attention last weekend to battles on Capitol Hill over the fate of the proposed Wall Street bailout bill, Internet companies including Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. quietly walked away with a legislative victory that could facilitate their use of copyrighted material.
The Senate on Friday passed the Orphan Works Act of 2008, legislation that weakens copyright protection for works whose owners cannot be located. The legislation has now been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
The legislation requires only that a company make a “reasonably diligent” search to locate a copyright owner before using their work in media including the Internet, and limits compensation required for the use of an infringed work.
-By John Letzing, MarketWatch Sept. 29, 2008
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/web-firms-quietly-win-copyright/story.aspx?guid={E21206C0-98F5-459B-9506-8133CBD82859}&dist=hpts
2. Google Acknowledges Copyright Infringement Claims Could Harm Business
ILLUSTRATORS PARTNERSHIP Sept 30 — In March 2007, Google filed a mandatory 10-Q Filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In it, they acknowledged: “copyright claims filed against us [by copyright owners] alleging that features of certain of our products and services, including Google Web Search, Google News, Google Video, Google Image Search, Google Book Search and YouTube, infringe their rights.”
Google admitted that “[a]dverse results in these lawsuits may include awards of substantial monetary damages, costly royalty or licensing agreements or orders preventing us from offering certain functionalities, and may also result in a change in our business practices, which could result in a loss of revenue for us or otherwise harm our business.” (Italics added.)
–Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, Illustrators Partnership
http://investor.google.com/documents/20070331_10-Q.html
3. Google Sees Value in Orphan Works
ILLUSTRATORS PARTNERSHIP March 8, 2006 — At the Copyright Office’s Orphan Works Roundtables, July 26-27, 2005, Alexander MacGilivray of Google stated:
“The thing that I would encourage the Copyright Office to consider is not just the very, very small scale -the one user who wants to make use of the [orphan] work - but also the very, very large scale - and talking in the millions of works. - page 21
“Google strongly believes that these orphan works are both worthwhile, useful, and extremely valuable.” - page 119
“We expect that our use of these orphan works will likely be in the 1 million works range…” (Italics added.) - page 166
“[W]e know that many of them [orphan works] will be in the public domain, that most of their authors won’t care. But there are a few [authors] that really will care and they will come forward [to claim authorship] and it will be extremely inefficient for us.” (Italics added.) -page 166
(Page numbers are from Copyright Office transcripts.)
Orphan Works Roundtables were held by the US Copyright Office July 26-7, 2005 in Washington DC
http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/transcript/0726LOC.PDF
4. Google Donates $3 Million to U.S. Library of Congress
Australian IT Nov 23, 2005 — The U.S. Library of Congress is kicking off a campaign to work with other nation’s libraries to build a World Digital Library, starting with a $US3 million donation from Google.
-Eric Auchard in San Francisco | November 23, 2005
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,17339145%5E15409%5E%5Enbv%5E15306-15322,00.html
TAKE ACTION: EMAIL CONGRESS NOW
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321
Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party.
_______________________________________________________________
For news and information:
Illustrators’ Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/
Over 75 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.
U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world’s artists.
INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267
CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator “I would like to leave a message for Congressperson __________ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act.” The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker’s office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you’re put through tell your Representative the message again.
If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place “Add Name” in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.
STOP THE ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.