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Thursday, October 09, 2008

Orphan Works Act of 2008 - update & Google role

The Orphan Works Act of 2008 has now passed the U.S. Senate. The legislation threatens artists because it 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. To protect your work you would have to register all your artwork for a fee.

Artist Walter King sounds a call against the legislation in the House in his Absolute Arts blog:

http://blog.absolutearts.com/blogs/archives/00000461.html

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Orphan Works Act 2008 - To provide a limitation on judicial remedies in copyright infringement cases involving orphan works.

OpenCongress Summary:

This bill would limit the amount of damages a copyright holder could collect from an infringer if the infringer performed a diligent search for the copyright holder before using their work. The goal of the legislation is to free up for reuse copyrighted works whose holders cannot be found. It would also set up a process for the Copyright Office to certify commercially-produced visual registries to help people locate the holder of a copyright and prevent the orphaning of works in the future.

An article in Art Print Issues: Orphan Works Act 2008 - Artists' Rights Under Fire?. It summarizes the controversy and provides numerous sources for differing viewpoints.

Posted by moderator at 07:28:05. Filed under: Art Careers

Comments

When I went to this Texas based website I was amazed to find out about the Orphan Works Act 2008 – It is designed to provide artists with limitations to provide judicial remedies in copyright infringement cases involving orphan works and<a href="http://www.artfortune.com">art work</a> . I’m quoting from the article that damages paid to a holder of the copyright holder could acure if he or she held the copyright. If the infringer could show proof that he carried out a diligent search to find the copyright holder. There is a lot of legal jargon attached to the bill. The main reasons that this bill has merit is because they have aimed it towards orphan artworks, media and creative adventures. Needless to say some artists are very upset by this law. Tell me what you think. As an artist I have very mixed feelings about someone coming in and telling me if I can or cannot be paid when someone infringes on my copyrighted art. .

Posted by O Hodge at Friday, May 07, 2010 00:15:32

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