HeartLinda
Commenting on clop, yiff, and occasionally other erotica. Highly NSFW. You can call me Craig. (Check out the directory for ways you can help me categorize my content better.) [This is a mirror of my Tumblr blog. Please read "About This Site" for more information.]
This is so not okay.
If any of you ever spot my artwork up for sale like this, please do me a solid and let me know.
Personally I’d be fine with people using my work to make money, especially if they give credit. But many artists don’t, and that should be respected.
I read over that list and it sounds like barely anything, if anything, is changing. It sounds another control freak artist trying to put a scary spin on this because Heaven forbid art be anything other than a means to get them and them alone fame and fortune.
An “orphan work” is “a copyright protected work for which rightsholders are positively indeterminate or uncontactable”. According to what I’m reading about this new law, under the current law “anyone using an orphan work runs the risk that the copyright owner may step forward and bring an infringement action for substantial damages, attorneys’ fees, and/or injuctive relief unless specific exception or limitation to copyright applies”. Even if you acted in “good faith” (i.e., made an attempt to contact the copyright holder), the copyright holder could just pop up years later and sue you if it’s not officially in the public domain yet.
Or, y’know, your YouTube video might get DMCA’d by a copyright patrol bot.
Because people can get sued/DMCA’d/C&D’d/etc. just for using a thing that’s been “orphaned”, orphan works are problematic. For example, take public libraries. There are all these old books, anyone can read them for free. But if someone owning an orphan work pops up and demands that their book not be available for free in libraries, then there’s complications.
The original post is full deliberate cherry-picking and convenient half-truths. The only people who really benefit from orphan works are corporations. Take a look at how video game companies are reselling old games on the digital market. If the Orphan Works Act had been passed years earlier, all those games might very well be subject to public domain. Of course, as SOPA and ACTA proved, everyone hates copyright laws when they clearly benefit Big Business, so corporations spread this idea that “artists” are the ones that lose out here. Tumblr’s full of gullible control freaks, so naturally they took the bait.
From Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution:
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”
Copyright holders do not have absolute control over their works (all you fan artists would get C&D’d left and right if that were true) and they do not get to hold on to their copyright forever. The only thing the Orphan Works Act actually does is put a tighter restriction on how long you can abandon a work before it goes into the public domain.
I recommend everyone read this thing here about orphan works, specifically “Consquences of Orphan Works”.
I have some issues with this:
1. All articles about this issue come from one source. And it isn’t in any way NYT, but “Journal of Biocommunication”. Whatever biology has to do with copyright for artists - I have no clue.
2. “The Next Great Copyright Act” is not a name of the bill, neither official or used by media. In fact, it’s a title of a lecture given by Register of Copyrights Maria A. Pallante. Not a bill, a lecture.
3. This text is full of emotionally charged vocabulary. Putting words like “privilege” or “pressure”, or making sweeping claims about a bill that doesn’t even exist doesn’t make it a viable source.
4. This works both ways. CGP Grey explained it well - remix is not an infringement. And change which would make any form of fair use banned will hurt people like you most. After all, if not laws we have we could be talking about Star Wars remakes made out of art that is in public domain, or: for all of us.
5. Unregistered work is orphaned anyway. Orphaned in this case means that one is unable to find copyright information regarding such piece.
6. This law can’t replace all copyright laws there are, because NO SUCH LAW EXISTS!
In fact, there is a site which has all the information about copyright law review: http://copyright.gov/laws/hearings/
All of that is at the moment a fear-mongering campaign to scare artists into a law which will hurt everyone: from old artists to new artists to public. Fair use, because that’s what apparently fuss is about, allows people to create stuff without worrying about being sued. And now apparently that is something bad.
And a tip: if you don’t want your art to be used in wrong ways, mark under which license the piece is.
ATTENTION ARTISTS
Copyright law is about to change
For more than a year Congress has been holding hearings for the drafting of a brand new US Copyright Act. At its heart is the return of Orphan Works
What does this mean for artists? it means it will make it easier for infringers to steal artists works and harder for people who are making or trying to make a living out of art more difficult. This will effect every artist and all the artwork they have created, are creating, and will be created. Corporates, Big businesses, and publishers want this to pass to make money out off artists works without paying us artists for past, current, and future artwork.
Basic Facts About The Law Being Proposed
- “The Next Great Copyright Act” would replace all existing copyright law.
- It would void our Constitutional right to the exclusive control of our work.
- It would “privilege” the public’s right to use our work.
- It would “pressure” you to register your work with commercial registries.
- It would “orphan” unregistered work.
- It would make orphaned work available for commercial infringement by “good faith” infringers.
- It would allow others to alter your work and copyright these “derivative works” in their own names.
- It would affect all visual art: drawings, paintings, sketches, photos, etc.; past, present and future; published and unpublished; domestic and foreign.** Ways to stop this or preventing these changes from happening**
> > > > > > > DEADLINE IS NEXT THURSDAY: JULY 23, 2015 < < < < < <
- share, reblog this post, spread it for other artists to take notice and action.
- You can submit a letter on how this law can be an issue for you as an artist here.
- Non-U.S. artists can email their letters to the attention of:
Catherine Rowland
Senior Advisor to the Register of Copyrights
U.S. Copyright Office
crowland@loc.govArticles about this - 1, 2, 3, 4
“Right now nobody has to understand copyright law because you’re protected by it, but under the law they are proposing, copyright law wont protect you anymore.”
- Brad Holland (Quote from the video - at 1:23:30)
seriously check this out, really needs to be stopped
I think this is sensationalized, but I’m reblogging this to encourage further investigation. Here’s the Copyright Office’s original report (“Orphan Works and Mass Digitization”).
Wetblush is open to everyone! Thank you for making it happen!
Through support on Patreon, Wetblush has allowed everyone to access its art without payment. With computers and the Internet making it ever easier to make and share copies of art, the money here shifts from paying for copies to paying for new art (the frequency of updates is tied to Patreon support [refer to the FAQ for the <$300 cases]). Obviously, computers cannot copy an artist’s creativity, so the only way to play is to pay.
Support them on Patreon, of course. Or, if you’re up for it, sign up yourself!
This is the way forward. Make it happen.
(Now if only they’d let people actually share the art once it’s out there.)
A few issues have come up on this blog about sharing and reusing other people’s artwork, the major ones being reposting paid content and pornographic depictions of “avatar” OCs. Copyright is sometimes brought up against certain usages of art, especially those that an artist would probably be against.
Of course, practically no one wants to break the law, and there likely is a good case to make against these usages. But I think the copyright sort of argument is weaker than it seems. Besides ignoring limitations on copyright like fair use and fair dealing (which are for another time), it ignores the fact that there are lots of things that we do that many artists would accept and even support, but are technically still copyright infringement.
Examples:
Even though an artist might be totally fine with these two situations, they’re still illegal in many cases. That’s because copyright says that creators must give explicit permission before anyone shares or uses their work in any way. Many artists don’t give clear permission, even though they probably would if someone asked.
In the paid-content issue, I mentioned Creative Commons (or “CC”) licenses. They make it clear: They’re an easy way for you to give everyone permission to share or use your work, given certain restrictions that you can choose. Doing this gets rid of any legal uncertainty behind reposting your work, which will make the copyright argument stronger.
Granted, some people make an informal statement of permission (“You can use my work as long as you give me credit,” for example), but I recommend CC licenses because using them is easier than spelling out all the conditions, and, more importantly, they’re written using legal language that has a better chance in court.
Sound good? I’ve made a quick-start guide to using CC licenses; check it out!
