Pending Legislation to Rip Off Artists?

[snot]

Got this by e-mail; anyone know anything about it?

Mickey Mouse Bill

May 6, 2008

Dear -----,

The principle of post-monetization says that nothing is worth
anything until somebody wants it. Those of us who make art for
a living--outside of commissioned work--essentially operate on
this principle. We make the stuff and put it out there. When
somebody decides, for whatever reason, they want it, then the
amount they are willing to pay is exactly the value at that
time. If we choose to resell, reproduce or replicate, that's
our business too. We still own the copyright.

The convention of putting a little c with a circle around it
became redundant in the U.S. in 1976. In current copyright law,
every drawing, painting, photograph, poem or play is simply
owned by you the author. If somebody swipes it, or uses it
without your permission, you have the law on your side to chase
them down and get paid.

That's why the current Orphan Works Act now being considered by
the U.S. Congress is particularly baffling. Promoted by
dough-head non-artists who are obviously listening to big-time
lobbyists, this bill says that you the artist must now
officially register every single work you wish to protect. The
on-line registries, presumably fee based, haven't yet been
established.

Big boys like Disney have always felt the necessity to register
copyrights. Can you imagine what's involved in owning and
protecting Mickey Mouse? That's why I'm calling this the Mickey
Mouse Bill. It continues to protect Mickey but leaves little
guys like you and me with another layer of paperwork and
expense. While in the guise of a last ditch attempt to locate
and release unclaimed (orphaned) work, it's my opinion this is
very bad legislation indeed. If someone can tell me the
possible value of the Orphan Works Act, I'd really appreciate
it.

Post-monetization is our life blood. The choice to defend an
extant work should always be in the hands of the creator or his
assigns. That's why the current law works so well. A few years
ago a car company decently asked me if they might use one of my
(already sold) paintings in the background of a car ad. I named
a reasonable fee and they readily agreed. We used a "one time
only" contract and we didn't even use a lawyer. If the Orphan
Works Act becomes law, without an author's prior registration,
Mercedes-Benz could just help themselves. No ask. No pay. Nutz.

Best regards,

------

PS: "The problem is that very few of the billions of images
will ever be registered. No artist that I know of has the time
to pull out every work of art they have ever produced and
register them with all the upcoming electronic databases."
(Mark Simon, artist advocate)

Esoterica: The advent of the Internet has been somewhat
responsible for this turn of events. Some pundits think we're
about to enjoy the sunset of copyright. As it is, Chinese
artists are ripping jpegs from the Western Internet, cloning
and reselling our stuff like crazy. We can't get at them
because they're in another jurisdiction. Now the U.S. wants
this in their jurisdiction? Nutz. In the meantime the big boys
like Google and Microsoft would like to see Mickey Mouse
happen. They've got the deep pockets to get what they want. I
don't know about you, but I haven't, and besides, I don't like
filling out forms.

[mopinko]

1. maybe you should call it

the "fucked by mickey mouse act"?

[Javaman]

2. here is another link...

http://www.copyright.gov/orphan/

It seems to me this is only the case when and if the original artist is unable to be found. But there is the rub. corps that take the original artwork could state that they tried but were unable to find the artist.

Being an artist myself, I'm a bit concerned by this.

[evlbstrd]

3. It places the burden of protection on the artist.

[Javaman]

4. more of that "owership" society that moron* likes to spout off about.

Throws more power to the corps and none to the people.

business as usual.

[Chimichurri]

5. this is infuriating! With all the other chaos going, fundamental rights

such as this are easily done away with.

[starroute]

6. The intent is good -- the execution may be flawed

As somebody with an interest in old pulp magazines, I'm very aware of the huge amounts of work -- both writing and art -- that is mouldering away because nobody can republish it without authorization and there is often no way of getting permissions. Writers and artists die, their heirs don't know or don't care, there is no contact information, and much of it may have been pseudonymous to begin with.

I'm also aware from having tried to google up information on American fascists of the late 1930's and early 40's that the conservative apologists for those people are often the only online source of information about them. Their leftwing opponents -- like most leftwing material of that creatively productive populist period -- are simply unavailable.

I'm not happy about that. I'd like to see that stuff available and freely circulating. I don't want American history to be written solely by the people with the money to keep their ideological forebears' stuff in print.

On the other hand, for those writers and artists whose work is still in demand, it's a definite burden to expect the aging creators or their heirs to keep track and pay to re-register everything they've ever done.

It's a failure of imagination, which can probably blamed on the right-wing assumption that the market is the solution to all problems. But if this market-based solution can't be enacted without screwing over artists, then a better solution has to be offered -- because the problem is very real and isn't going to go away.

[truedelphi]

7. Here's what I know abt making money in the artist's world

Back in the 1980's I was hired to be an admin assistant for a man who was a lawyer.

He worked for another firm, let's call it the "M" firm, a company that was known in Marin County but certainly not outside Marin County.

Within a week, I realized much of my job would consist of writing to many museums of art and attempting to put forth this lawyer's name so that he would get a coveted position on the Board of Directors of some museum.


This lawyer was also very close friend's with an art gallery owner in San Francisco, let's call it Gallery B.

Anyway, the lawyer was consistently turned down. I sort of wondered why he was obsessed with wanting to be on the Board of Dir's at any museum out there.


BUt then one day I overheard him talking to the gallery owner and I finally realized this -

If you are on the Board of Director's at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, let's say, then you can influence which paintings get selected to be put into the museum collections.

And once those paintings are put into the museum's collection, the gallery that holds most of the other paintings done by that artist will see the value of that inventory go sky rocketing overnight.

So I realized that what was going on was an insider deal - the lawyer and his art gallery-owning buddy both needed the lawyer to get aboard at some Museum's Board of Directors.

Anyway nothing came of the lawyer's quest during the few short months that I was there.

But about a year after I left the firm, I got the sudden inkling to purchase the San Francisco Chronicle. And to read the society pages. (Something I normally overlooked.)
There on the society page was the announcement, with photos, of the lawyer's marriage to a woman who headed one of the staffs of one San Francisco's museums. (I forget which one - but it was one of the larger museums.)

It was also mentioned in the article that the lawyer had decided to "serve the public" by undertaking a position on the Board of Directors at this same museum.

And I am sure that his friend, the owner of Gallery B was delighted. The artists at Gallery B would soon understand that they had cause for celebration as well.

[Geoff R. Casavant]

8. Don't forget, registration helps copyright owners

At present, there is no need to register a copyright, but if infringement occurs against a non-registered work, the author must prove authorship, and can only sue for actual proven damages and injunctive relief.

But if the work had previously been registered, then the author (a) has less of a burden to prove authorship, and (b) is entitled to a statutory measure of damages in the thousands.

Certainly worth the $25 registration fee, I'd say.