Copyright Legislation

[Ayame Ex_Goddess]

Yo-

I don't post to often, but a friend of mine sent this to me, and I was wondering if it was true. Being that it's april, I'm wary...Anyway, I didn't see any threads about it, so I thought I'd ask.

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Colu ... le_no=3605

[Bustertheclown]

Actually, I had only heard about this last night, about five minutes before I went to bed. It seems this particular article is making some rounds. Articles like this always bother me, because they have a tendency to show up and create a stir on several fronts, and not really provide any real answers. The fact that I've seen this particular article linked in two separate venues, both of which are pretty independent of each other, causes me to wonder at the mimetic qualities of this information.

I don't trust links that behave in such a manner, so I did go to the website of the U.S. Copyright Office, and look it up, which, honestly, is the first thing a person concerned with copyright issues within the U.S. should ever do to get answers. Here is what I found. The bill itself can be found on that page, but here it is (PDF) too. The bill was actually drafted and introduced two years ago, by the way, making this not new legislation. Obviously, I didn't go through the hundreds of pages of material that are provided on the subject from the Copyright Office page. For now, I'll leave that up to those who actually want to research the subject, until I can get around to it.

My initial thoughts on the article you posted, although I reserve the right to change my mind upon review of further evidence, is that it's extremely alarmist. It really bothers me that the only citation found to support such a strongly worded article, written in the "let's panic now!" vein, are a link or two that lead to information provided by Illustrators' Partnership and people associated with it, an organization that I have never heard of, and one which, upon glancing at it's front page, seems pretty stuck on the idea that Orphan Works legislation is pure unadulterated evil. That sets off more than a few flags. No links to the actual language of the legislation? No links to the Copyright Office? No links to any official documentation that this is actually happening, making the only evidence cited other opinions on the subject? It took me thirty seconds to find what I found, meaning that this isn't a cleverly hidden conspiracy against The People, so why no citations? Well, because it's not the aim of an article like this to actually inform the public. Rather, it's the aim of an article like this to sway the public.

This may or may not be good legislation. Again, I haven't gone through all of the official documents yet, so I can't really form an opinion. I expect I will chime in on this again when I'm better informed. However, I will state that if that article is the only information you have to go on, then start doing some research. That information is biased, and you should be making up your own mind on how you feel about the issue before someone gets the chance to sway you.

[McDuffies]

That article is godawful, while reading it I simultaneously had flashbacks of watching tv infomercials and reading chain letters.
It doesn't mean that issue is not serious, but it does say that writer sucks. If that's our spokeperson, we're in much more troubles than one law.

To tell the truth, I couldn't struggle through legal mess of that bill; If I understood that page from Copyright Office site, it calls works "orphan works" if noone is claiming them; It doesn't say that any work that isn't registered will automatically be called orphan work - unless the bill itself is saying something completely different.
It could be an attempt to solve a small problem by potentially creating much bigger. To me, "discouraging future artists from integrating such works" is just not the reason enough to change something radically in copyright law; if it's a new approach, it might work in reality or create a larger mess, but why risk it to fix the problem that I've barely heard mentioned in seven years of hanging around online art communities.

In any case, a big deal or not, the worst way to deal with it is by lighting torches and yelling "Think of the children!" That's the way to have noone take you seriously.

[Wp]

I freaked out too, but apparently, like Buster found, this bill has been dead for a while or is destined to fail, and it didn't even apply to all artists, like McDuffies said.

[Bustertheclown]

Okay, giant rant ahead. Watch out.

I just went back and re-read the OP article, since I had just woken up when I responded this morning, and I wanted to catch this now that my brain isn't all groggy.

My eyes now hurt from rolling so much. I just wish that that article had a response section, so I could spam the page with, "CITE YOUR FUCKING SOURCES, GOON!" over and over and over.

This is honestly ridiculous! It's not so much that the article was written. It's a crackpot's god-derived right to write hysterical rants and post it on the internet, an act which carries with it a long and glorious tradition. In fact, if it weren't for hysterical, ranting crackpots, the internet would be missing about 50% of its content. (the other 50% being porn) No, the article itself is fine. In fact, it's a piece of comedy gold. Honestly, I think I might just write my congresswoman, too. Here's the draft, what do you think?

Dear Senator Patty Murray, (et al)

I'm writing to you, because I just heard about this terrible Orphaned Works bill. I read an article about it, where the guy was just screaming about how horrible it was, and how it will steal all of my hard work as an artist away from me, and give it to Bill Gates. Bill Gates doesn't deserve to have my work. I made it. It's mine!

I'm not exactly sure about specifics of the bill, since the article posted absolutely no citation or information on where or how I can track the bill down. From what I can tell, it's been in congressional limbo for a couple of years now. I've been assured, however, in ALL CAPS, which means that this is serious business, that you people in the government are going to keep pushing this thing until it passes, because Big Business owns you, and you hate the Little Man.

I implore you, Senator Murray, (et al) should this bill come before Congress, kill it! Some guy who painted covers for 70's prog rock albums, and a guy who drew Spider-Man are on record stating that this is bad stuff! Why would they lie to me? They're professional artists. They know stuff!

I'd hate to have to vote against you in the next election, Senator Murray (et al), so please, kill the Orphaned Works bill. Thanks in advance.

A concerned citizen,
Robert Jones

Comedy aside, the part that really bothers me is that people are paying attention to the crackpots, and this link is spreading like wildfire, getting everyone in a tizzy. Copyright law is in the terrible position of being a law that tends to protect the livelihoods of some of the lazier and flakier wackos in society. Throw out a piece of horribly worded conspiratorial crap, and watch them scramble like ants on fire! "OMG! My work is STOLENED by the Gov'ment!" "Help! I'm too lazy to take the steps necessary to protect my work, and now the Library of Congress wants to sell it to Windows!"

Of all the responses to this that I've read, the majority have absolutely no bead on reality. They're taking the willfully inflammatory words of a single editorial written by some random animator as if it were gospel. Of all of the blogs and threads I've slogged through in the last few hours which address this subject, do you know how many have had someone take the time to actually look up and post the actual official material pertinent to this issue? Three, and the person who did it was the same person; ME. I swear to Bob, shit like this goes down every six months, and, as an activist who has worked for years to educate artists about the true nature of copyright, I'm getting pretty weary from having to explain to the willfully ignorant that THEY are the ones who are fucking up, with every lie they believe, every rumor they spread, every image they post without full knowledge of their protections, every flame war they start because they feel their work has been "stolen".

It doesn't take much to understand how copyright works to protect authors. A single book on the subject, and a little web surfing would be enough for most, yet most rarely even go that far. It wouldn't take much to understand that there has been a problem created in the frenzy to tighten copyright laws over the last fifteen years, and the corresponding clash that the ease of dissemination that digital technology has created with that frenzy. The situation at hand is that there are millions of images that are currently technically protected by copyright, possibly in perpetuity at least for the next hundred to hundred-and-fifty years, yet, due to the anonymity of the internet, as well as the utter laziness and ignorance of artists of their need to protect their work, and the right steps that need to be taken to do so, finding authors for these works is nigh impossible. Something NEEDS to be done to address the situation that has been created, because the polarity of "all intellectual property is a protected asset" vs. "all intellectual property is not safe from digital technology and the blind flood of information" creates an untenable state of being for the law as it stands.

This Orphaned Works legislation makes an attempt, at least, to address this rift. It may not be the best attempt, but at least it is an attempt. Yet, cue the flood of "they're taking our rights!" bullshit manifestos from the woefully uninformed. Personally, I believe that if something isn't done to address the current disconnect between theory and application that our intellectual property laws have found themselves in, the rights we artists stand to lose will be tenfold worse than anything we could imagine a bill like Orphaned Works threatens to take away.

However, that's just my opinion.

[Drsaltine2]

Well put, buster.

[Kisai]

Just to chime in because I read some of this at work when researching a particular item.

The issue with 'abandoned works' , eg stuff that the copyright owner can not be found to ask permission off, covers everything from arcade games and games predating the NES where we haven't a bloody clue who wrote the program and the the companies went titsup to artwork, music, movies and written novels where some content was distributed around and people think it's in the public domain just because the copyright holder hasn't found out.

A good example of this is the 'sprite comic' issue on CG. Just who do you ask to use use or license material from a game that was produced 10-20 years ago? Nintendo's webpage says "Nobody, we don't license anything, goaway." But other copyright owners like Capcom and Konami you can't even find anything on. Then there are complex licenses like Disney/Square with Kingdom hearts or Who Framed Roger Rabbit with Disney/WB or even parodies and fair use. When some aspect of this content that was licensed becomes public domain, who owns any/all of it?

This is why companies like Microsoft are afraid of open source licenses (for art/media it's creative commons), because it has a viral aspect to it. By making something that was once a revenue stream free, for ANY reason, suddenly makes customers and other licensors wary of using because they may have to release their own stuff under the same license.

Anyway, going back to the abandoned works. Ever hear of abandonware? Guess what, it does't exist. It's a label given to try and ligitimize software piracy just like 'delete in 24 hours' or 'you can only download if you already own' ... companies balk at such untrue statements. The BSA (Microsoft,Adobe,etc) and ESA (Nintendo,Sony,Konami,Capcom,etc) have the same interest as the MPAA and RIAA, yet you don't hear about it because the content produced is licensed differently.

Software is, and always has been licensed post-Bill Gates. Prior to bill gates, software was pretty much freely copied. You can credit Bill Gates with the "Software License", This includes games. Software has only existed for about 50 years, patents covered it before the advent of programmable computers.

Media on the other hand, goes back centuries, and has always been about ownership, not licenses. You "own" a CD, but you do not have the right to reproduce it. Therefor you can always resell that CD to someone. or can you?
http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op ... sid/27847/

Software has always fought a losing battle with piracy. With audio and movies, copies were never perfect and usually pretty bad untill about 1996 when digital copies started happening left and right (about the time CD burners started to become popular.) Software, which is always copied perfectly, even from source code has the added problem of reverse engineering. You can perfectly reverse engineer a software application, strip out the copy protection, add your name to it and resell it, and nobody will catch on, and this is actually what happens in china and to open source applications all the time. Since people in open source circles are all familiar with each others products, and there is not much of a profit motive to stealing open source, it goes back to selling Vista for 5$ in china preloaded with worms and viruses.

The final argument being quality control. If only the rights owner has the right to produce and license their content, and the content never gets released to the public domain, they can have a continued revenue stream forever. This nonsense was originally covered by the short copyright term in the US and even other countries. (50 years) but now copyright terms have been extended to the point of nothing will ever come into the public domain in the US. Meanwhile Australia happily goes about legally breaking DRM, and Canada legally freely P2P copies things. Then there is that european country I'll just rename thepiratebay.

Anyway.

My opinion is that copyrights, in their original form should be the point at which something is considered abandoned. eg, Microsoft Basic 1.0 should be considered abandoned because the hardware and software is no longer manufacturered. Most arcade games still exist, but the parts to maintain and operate them no longer do, they should be considered abandoned (eg the ARCADE version in ROM), however the copyright owner still has the right to produce a new version (See Atari for examples) that works with existing hardware, and we must respect that and not steal that new version. But from a "museum" perspective we should be able to see what the old version was like.

I'm all for "copyrighted works that are out of print and equipment to use the work is no longer financially viable to manufacture/repair/replace should be released to the public domain if the copyright owner does not produce a new version that works with existing technology" but please, I hate seeing piracy as the real motive behind such actions. If the public domain didn't exist, Disney wouldn't have any source from which to draw their animated movies from. If fair use didn't exist, the Simpsons wouldn't be running for 18 seasons and would have ran out of original ideas 15 years ago. Most of our -existing- content,including webcomics is based on fair use of existing material that is NOT in the public domain and licenseing of material that is not. Licensing is the issue here.

Orphaned works are works where by the original owner can not be contacted (eg dead, no copyright names on title, defunct company) and the works would only be released to the public domain after the copyright term is up and not be licensable before then.

I hope this brings a bit of light, I may be misunderstanding some of it as I haven't the time to read all it, but I do work in intellectual property stuff every day, so stuff like this comes up enough.

[Jekkal]

And while the topic already looks successfully talked to death, Here's a little more research into what's really going on.

[Kisai]

And while the topic already looks successfully talked to death, Here's a little more research into what's really going on.

You should see how often I get reports at work for people saying their sentence of 5 words
(when the entire piece of content would be like on the level of 500 words) was stolen from [person they have an axe to grind]. Srsly....

Actual infringement cases that are worth going to court over are far and few between, and the ones that do, are doing it on a criminal level to begin with (bootleg software, merchandise, etc.) It's only when X starts making money off the infringement that it suddenly goes from "I don't care" to "I want a piece of that."

And yes, it's illegal to buy derivatives of copyrighted works. But that doesn't stop people from buying fansubs and fake louis vuittons. Until such time that all countries have the same copyright laws and uncorrupted governments, there will always be someone and some place intentionally sticking it to the big guy.

[Rkolter]

It is illegal to -knowingly- buy illegal derivatives of copyrighted works. While it's not illegal to unknowingly buy them, they can be confiscated and you would have no legal recourse aside from sueing the person who sold them to you (at least in the US).

[McDuffies]

How do they prove you bought it knowingly?

[KWill]

Depends on the situation. Occasionally, there'll be evidence in favor of that or an admission of guilt. It's not for nothing they tell you that anything you say can and will be used against you in court in the US. Some countries, however, don't punish people who unknowingly buy stolen goods. There's a lovely story about a German guy that saw his stolen motorcycle in a TV commercial and couldn't get it back because the Baltic state in which the new owner resided has no laws requiring said person to return it.

[Jim North]

Of all of the blogs and threads I've slogged through in the last few hours which address this subject, do you know how many have had someone take the time to actually look up and post the actual official material pertinent to this issue? Three, and the person who did it was the same person; ME.

I normally don't get myself involved in this sort of crackpot nonsense and it's not much, but I'm trying to do the same. People really ought to know better by now.

How do they prove you bought it knowingly?

*puts on tin foil hat*

[KWill]

*puts on tin foil hat*

You do know that the "tin foil protects from government brainwave decoders" urban myth originates from a conspiracy by the tin foil industry in order to sell more tin foil, right?

[Kisai]

in which most 'tinfoil' is actually aluminum foil.

[TRI]

Don't you people know those things just amplify the government mind control rays?

[McDuffies]

I guess that plan is foiled. Oh ho ho ho.

[Jim North]

Man, it's a good thing I've been lining my tinfoil hats with lead and rat poison, then, or I'd really be in trouble.

[McDuffies]

That's what I've been lining my dishes with.

[TRI]

Well I guess they can't control your mind if you give yourself enough brain damage.