Once again, the corporatists are gnashing their teeth to pillage the people! Now, even copyright protection for authors and illustrators is endangered.
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Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner of the Illustrators Partnership have sounded an alarm to the artistic community:
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The Copyright Office seeks to examine the issues raised by orphaned works, that is, copyrighted works whose owners are "difficult" or impossible to locate. The "Orphan Work" study [requests] written comments by March 25 from all parties … affected by a change in the law.
This study was prompted in part by lawsuits filed by Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons, a vocal leader of the international "Free Culture" movement. It's the contention of this well-funded movement that copyright protection for creative work restrains creativity and free speech. They've embarked on a many-faceted effort to limit or roll back copyrights throughout the world.
The promoters of Free Culture [seek] to portray copyright as a means by which big business "locks down" creativity and keeps the public from the culture it's "entitled" to. We want to remind lawmakers culture doesn't grow on trees for lawyers to harvest.
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While we can reach only a fraction of all the artists who would be hurt by progressive copyright erosions, we can be the representative fraction that speaks out, stating the case for those who (shall we say) "can't be located." …
From an eloquent letter of appeal Holland and Turner recently submitted to Congress:
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On behalf of ... illustrators and arts organizations, we respectfully petition the U.S. Copyright Office to maintain copyright protection of so-called orphaned works on all visual artistic works for the following reasons:
It's not valid to infer a protected work of art has been abandoned simply because a potential user has difficulty identifying or locating an artist. Many works appear in print or on the Internet as a result of unauthorized usage, and unsophisticated users may copy art from multiple sources. Also, as publishers adapt previously printed editions to the Internet, artistic works may be separated from their original context without attribution. If a work of art is orphaned because of unlawful or feckless usage, its integrity will be irreparably compromised by stripping it of protection.
Authors' rights are their incomes. The exclusive right to publish or not publish gives the artist the right to determine what compensation is due for usage. Most freelance artists and writers have no other source of income but their creative work, and the accumulated value of that work is no different than the value that accrues to one's home. Therefore, the copyright that protects creative work does not deprive the public of an "entitlement" any more than does the ordinary ownership of private property.
Creativity is not chilled by protecting orphaned works. The human imagination is not dependent on unlimited access to an unlimited body of other people's work to physically appropriate. Even with copyright protection intact, orphaned work can inspire and influence others.
Free speech is not restricted by protecting orphaned works. Since ideas and influence are not copyrightable, no one's free speech is restricted by placing legal limits on their appropriation of other people's tangible expressions of their own ideas.
Culture is not impoverished by protecting orphaned works. But without copyright protection, authors will lose one of their chief incentives to create. ...
The Internet has destabilized the environment in which creators must work. And as artistic works become available worldwide, there is an increased demand for content. But the opportunity this presents to artists for disseminating their work is currently menaced by the threat to authorship that comes with unauthorized usage by others. ... Removing protection from work that has fallen through the cracks of this system-in-flux will unfairly reward opportunists at the expense of creative individuals. …
The "orphaned" works currently under consideration by the Copyright Office include the work of many artists now in the prime of their careers. To remove copyright protection from this work has the potential to undermine the important public policy behind copyright: To promote the creation and dissemination of culture by rewarding incentive. Rescinding guaranteed protection from copyrighted works will do more harm than good to the creative community and by extension, to the public good.
Please maintain copyright protection of so-called orphaned works on all visual artistic works.
I urge concerned readers to submit their own responses about this Orphan Works Study (70 FR 3739) to: Jule L. Sigall, Associate Register for Policy & International Affairs, U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright GC/I&R, P.O. Box 70400 Southwest Station, Washington, DC 20024.
