DISQUS

Gigi Sohn · 1 year ago

Jerry -

I agree with you that Lessig's proposal won't solve the orphan works problem. Also, it's a political non-starter. I've addressed the op-ed at length here: http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1584. Thanks. Gigi

cordblomquist · 1 year ago

Once again Jerry, excellent analysis.

Tonsotunez · 1 year ago

When you get right down to it, when has Lessig been right about anything?

cordblomquist · 1 year ago

Once we agreed to making everything ever written, photographed, recorded, or coded automatically copyrighted, didn't we doom ourselves to this fate of uncertainty? Compulsory licensing is to blame!

Even if Lessig were to mandate that all future works--both domestic and foreign--must contain a label showing year of creation and what rights the author maintains, uncertainty would still exist.

It seems to me that since we've had automatic copyright for so long that the burden simply has to be on the potential user of a work to verify that it is not copyrighted.

Jerry Brito · 1 year ago

Cord, First things first: compulsory licensing is something else; I think what you mean is copyright without formalities. Formalities are the things that one has to do to gain copyright protection for a work. In the past these have included registration with the government and notice (marking the work).

You're absolutely right that once we abandoned formalities in the Copyright Act of 1976, the orphan works problem was inevitable. The best solution to the orphan works problem (and a host of other problems) would be to reintroduce formalities. That is basically what Lessig is trying to do in his proposal.

However, to truly reformalize we would have to redo the Copyright Act and pull out of the Berne Convention. These things are not politically practical. Lessig tries to get around the impediment posed by the Berne Convention by having his registration requirement apply only to U.S. authors, but that is also politically impractical (imagine a law that burdens American authors and not foreign ones!) and also creates the host of problems I outlined on my post.

Lloyd Shugart · 1 year ago

Comments»

1. Lloyd Shugart - May 30, 2008

There are many issues with the law as proposed…mainly it just further creates hardship and litigation…….the only reason it won’t overwhelm the Fed Court system is that it will not be financially feasible to pursue protection of the copyrights, because the bill guts any damages and the attorney fees. As it stands now it will promote USE FIRST, and ONLY AK FOR PERMISSION if you get caught.

The only true way to slow the creation of Orphans issue is MANDATORY ATTRIBUTION, since our laws lack any moral rights, and Morals can’t be legislated to any effect. At least with Attribution, and google the living Artist will be able to be found. As Tammy indicates in her letter to congress the current proposal will only create further morass.

Lloyd Shugart
Unintended victim

Tammy,

full copy of Tammy’s letter here http://artsandcraftslaw.blogspot.com/

I read your letter on a Techdirt http://techdirt.com/articles/20080425/124144950... #12 posting, and I must say that of all of my readings on this issue. Your letter is on point of the real effects of this legislation, as it relates to creators, especially the visual artist.

I am the POSTER CHILD for why this is bad for the copyright creators.

I come from an experience that is real. I am in year 3 of a copyright litigation that, my legal bill now exceeds $500,000.00 USD.

US copyright laws currently lack “MORAL RIGHTS”…. before any “ORPHAN WORKS LAW” should be considered the copyright laws need to address at least “Mandatory Attribution” bc I don’t think that moral rights can be enforced by law.

My case involves thousands of images that were marked with my “CMI” embedded into each and every image, with metadata….client removed said data, and then licensed my images to hundreds of third parties who then licensed my images to thousands of additional third parties under their “Affiliate Marketing Programs”

So if you are an artist and are concerned with your artwork then you better be concerned with this proposed legislation, and the impacts it will have on your ability to sustain yourself.

As an aside, although I was the copyright owner, I was the defendant in this lawsuit. I was forced to incur $500,000.00 USD in legal fees to protect my copyrights. As a result I now have thousands of images being used by thousands of people whom are all using my images to make money….they have not paid one red cent for these assets…I can not pursue each and every one of them….and those that I do can claim as a defense that the work is either in public domain or an orphaned work, or that it was an innocent infringement.

How many readers have the kind of USD it take to protect your copyrights, even under the laws as they now stand? If the orphan works law passes as now proposed it will cost more to protect your rights both in real dollars and in your personal time, and emotions.

Propet USA v. Lloyd Shugart WD WA. Federal Court

Lloyd Shugart