Orphan Works AKA death for artists
polycounter lvl 18
Read this!
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3605&page=1
What the fuck is happening to this world? Over the past 7 years i have watched rights get taken away one by one. This one would put all contract artists out of work as well as photographers. This would make it so anyone could claim your work as their own, anything you make is fair use for all. This means all your pictures, all your textures, all your models, anything you make, its all belongs to everyone.
Do your part lets make sure this shit doesn't get passed!
http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3605&page=1
What the fuck is happening to this world? Over the past 7 years i have watched rights get taken away one by one. This one would put all contract artists out of work as well as photographers. This would make it so anyone could claim your work as their own, anything you make is fair use for all. This means all your pictures, all your textures, all your models, anything you make, its all belongs to everyone.
Do your part lets make sure this shit doesn't get passed!
Replies
People = Good. Huge corporations = Bad.
First, if a hypothetical Big Company wants to steal your shit, they don't need legislation to permit them to do it.
Second, if you didn't register your art with the Copyright Office, no lawyer is going to help you sue said Big Company because without registration there's no way to get damages. There's no money in it. You're SOL.
If you're an artist and you make money by licensing your work out (not work for hire), and you're not registering it with the Copyright Office, you're an idiot. Please give me your URLs so I can steal your shit, make money from it, and then use that money to buy a plane ticket to fly to your house and kick you in the nuts.
Third, real orphan works may represent a substantial amount of previously unusable material for creative derivation and any legislation to open that up is better than them lying fallow for 70 years after their latest possible date of death. That's too long.
All art is based on something else, especially here, where every day someone else posts yet another fucking space marine.
Register your art with the Copyright Office, you cheap, stupid, lazy fucks.
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#wccc
As soon as I'm done with a piece of artwork it is mine. No one can claim it as their own. That is law. Even if I sell the object to someone, I still own the copyright to it. Unless I specifically sign the copyrights to them, it can never be claimed as anyone else's work.
Your example of a space marine doesn't make sense, either. Basing your material off of something else isn't the problem - it's direct theft of your own artwork that is. This legislation permits anyone to take anything they want, and do whatever they want with it, unless I pay buckets of cash to some company to claim it as my own.
Why the hell should I have to pay money to register something, when I own it right now?
Fuck you Corbis and Getty images.
I find it insane that every artist, musician, photographer, etc, will have to pay to copyright every single piece of content they create.
First, the intent of the original change to US copyright law that allowed unregistered works to be instantly copyrighted was to give you more time to file a formal copyright with the Copyright Office. It wasn't meant so that you'd never have to, even though that's what lazy, ignorant artists have tried to turn it into.
Second, if you're not filing with the Copyright Office for every pixel you author, you might as well deed it all to the public domain. Why? Because you're already giving it away. By not filing for a formal copyright you lose the ability to sue for damages. When I steal your artwork, the most you can do is sue me for the fair value of it.
Which, in this age of outsourced Chinese sweatshop artists doing oil painting knockoffs of Great Masters for $5 a square foot, is, well, about $5 a square foot.
Oh, I'm sorry, you make digital art? Let me see how much a pixel costs. Oh, right, nothing at all. No distribution cost. Courts don't care about production cost. Courts care about the fair market value.
Sucks to be you. Your unregistered copyright and five dollars will buy you a latte at Starbucks.
There's nothing you can do. No lawyer will help you. You won't recoup any money from me stealing and profiting from your art. You might as well already be giving it away.
Unless you spend the $30 plus postage to file a formal copyright. Then you can sue me for everything I'm worth and lawyers will looooove to help you out for free.
Oh, I'm sorry, did you say "buckets of cash?" You didn't even know it was $30, a form, and a stamp, did you. No, you didn't. Dumbass.
Your rebuttal sucks as much as the original article does.
If any artist on here were to spend that (apparently small) $30 tag per texture, per model, per animation, etc - then hell yes, that's "buckets" of cash. A single environment could cost a regular artist several hundred dollars or more to formally copyright it.
Should we be doing that? Yeah I suppose we should be. But we sure as hell shouldn't HAVE to.
And no need to be so cranky about it! Stop using that damn sandpaper and switch to Charmin.
Someone has to prove they created a work to file an official copyright, correct? So, if I discovered something I made has been used in a magazine or something without my permission (ie - a sketch I posted here, done in my free time at home), I could go through the process you just described to obtain a copyright. After that, I could sue the magazine, and recoup legal fees as well as damages?
If I understand it correctly, the author is still the only one who can copyright a work. Under this new law, however, it sounds like the first person to copyright the work gets the claim, whether they made it or they found it posted on polycount or something. Do I misunderstand?
If I'm correct, this new law seems to be a lot more unfair to the creators of art.
Stop being so lazy.
And what new law? Orphan works legislation has been bouncing around the hill for 2-3 years now. Show me a bill number so I can look it up in Thomas. This guy provides no factual information quoted from anything, and there's no indication on sites like Sourcewatch or Lawrence Lessig's blog about something nefarious being reintroduced.
My position that it's vitriolic, ignorant horseshit stands.
Then again, you don't exactly need to copyright EVERY little thing, just the shit you find worthwhile. But, this still seems like a shitty deal.
Artists can walk into something with the intent to copyright something for monetary gain, but I'm sure that most people are just not going to do something like that on a daily basis when it comes to any little old thing. However, the major thing here is the principle and nature of the situation. I mean, sure if people like Vito who are in the know can protect their work and find it palpable to disregard this as nothing, but the very fact that its even being proposed and considered is something to worry about. If this were to go into effect, then what else can be approved? What other laws or rules or loopholes can be implemented to further screw over the general populace? Bearing those things in mind, I very much do think that this is worth fighting over.
Oh, and as an aside,
Something similar i can recall is that humor site Ebaum's World which was notorious for taking anything and everything funny from the net and hosting it on the site for money and gave no credit to the people who made those things. There was a lot of shit on that site that really had no one to claim the work, but there were many more things like flash games and movies that actually took REAL effort to produce and the mods of that site would routinely remove any copyrighted information from those works and slap on the Ebaum logo and call it their own. Lots of people were pissed but the most that could be done was including an injunction clause in their disclaimer that stated that any work would be removed if the original author could prove the work as being theirs, but that was a tough sale because of the very nature of the medium that the content was being distributed on (the internets, mind you) so it was near impossible to fight.
Basically, some things just weren't made with the intent of selling them, but it doesn't mean that the creators should be forced to copyright EVERYTHING just to protect themselves, because that does add up over time, even when copyrighting volumes of work. Even now it can be difficult to protect work that already has some sort of copyright as the law stands, but that doesn't mean that the process should be made any easier for people who are willing to rip from others.
The other obvious, but shittier solution is to just not show anyone anything, but where's the fun in that?
Just my 2 cents...
Exactly my point. But in this shitty day and age, everyone is looking for shortcuts and east money. That is why. :poly125:
This makes sense to me honestly. Sure you created the visual art...but it doesn't mean you have legal law-enforcing copyright to it. Also the current copyright law doesn't mean you have to pay to own your work...you "own" it as it's already in your possession. You are paying for the right to protect it and enforce a penalty on others via suing if someone decides to steal your artwork. Also people can't steal artwork that you are not sharing with others online...and I yes I do know that we don't really do art we don't intend to be seen. This also makes me think about my work as a freelancer and being a "work-for-hire"...I have to abide by US Copyright laws that state my works for clients are their creations, they have complete authorship from concept to final delivered design. These are pieces I have created entirely with only a phone call for guidance from a client. I physically create this art...but it's not mine and it's not my creation under copyright law. I basically own nothing and have right to nothing if I am a work-for-hire....there are certain exemptions I think. I may use/display some things under the Fair Use Act...such as for educational purposes, not for monetary gain, etc...
Thinking in terms of 3d modeling or animations...sure someone could steal your render or a photo...but specifically to this they can't steal the source Maya file...the actual 3d mesh and textures. So you can share what you are doing and still keep your source files in your possession only. If you have something of actual monetary worth or value most people and businesses are already and have been protecting those images for decades now. You wouldn't start a company and develop an awesome logo or artistic scene for it and not immediately register it with the govt for copyright to protect it. Why do you think businesses or people who create art for monetary gain already do this? To legally protect their visual assets. Nothing out of order there. You wouldn't go into court if you were Mcdonalds and own your logo to the company and try and argue you own it solely on moral rights now would you? It wouldn't hold an ounce of worth.
I haven't heard anyone mention the Visual Artists Act of 1990 or it was named something very close to that. I think that did help to establish a flimsy set of moral rights for visual arts specifically....but again it's not something that holds up well in the US legal system.
I think what I see and hear is a lot of folks getting upset they have to abide by the laws now to protect their works....and I think it's rightfully so that artists are angry about it. I will say some of the scary verbiage in this Orphan Works is what makes it seem very broad and all encompassing.
Must... resist urge... to... make... "300" reference... GAH!
Companies steal land, ideas, art, and shit all the time without this.
companies steal shit? Id hate to be part of the shit stealing department LOL
One question though, If I never give away my original source files...like the source is a psd but I show a much smaller jpeg version. Surely Im covering myself a little by keeping the source and not letting people have 100% copys of my work? Like if someone says "you didnt do that painting!" , I could say "yes I did, heres the original psd with all the layers"...doesnt that hold up for something in court?
It's vitoR that's done all the hard work for polycount, right? Not this cocksmith?
tell me if I've got it wrong..
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00263
Also an artist isn't going to just be punished for this because they were 'lazy'. Lets say I photograph a lot of undersea work and I do indeed pay and copywrite it. Now there's a company who needs to use a lot of undersea pictures for whatever reason. Instead of paying me to use my work or other artists who took undersea pictures, all they would need to do is grab these 'orphaned' works by other artists and use them, thus me or anyone else who copywrited their work not getting paid.
The companies will chose the cheaper route and I think the result would be paying for less copywrited artwork and alternatively just grabbing orphaned work.
Honestly I think the idea that you have to pay someone else to say that you own something you created is silly anyways.
Actually that is the point. The current system is broken.
People are reusing content all over the place without consent of the original author (lolcats, funny pictures, hell even most of the photo source textures we do around here to name a few).
And technically all that is illegal and could theoretically get you in big trouble.
Think about it that way:
It is a huge efford (often even impossible) to figure out the legal situation for many minor works, which actually means you can not use them. And all that efford of a work that the original author can't be arsed to register?
Sure theoretically you automaticly "own" all rights to your works, but it has to be balanced with the needs of the overall society (especially if it doesn't really hurt you/the artist to do so).
And as Vito already pointed out... all it does is turn current realities into a law.
However such a orphan art system can be abused, especially if the registration fee is too high (and IMHO 30$ is too high already).
I don't think that's true. If you edit the material into something that could be considered a different piece of art, it becomes your own. So taking the window of a building out of a flickr photo and putting it into your texture with some cleanup, mirroring and hue adjustments would probably be enough to get you off the hook. I'm not a patent lawyer though... this is just what I've heard.
But AFAIK using photo sources you have not made your self in textures is potentially illegal and could get you in trouble. But I am no lawyer either
Edit: I am not sure if the orphan art system is really the best way to deal with this problem. But you can hardly deny that ther IS a legal problem regarding this. It does seem to be an extented "fair use" clause though which has proven to be a good thing in many countries.
edit2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use
"released a study that found that Fair Use exceptions to US copyright laws were responsible for more than $4,500 Billion dollars in annual revenue for the United States economy representing one-sixth of the total U.S. GDP.[20] The study was conducted using a methodology developed by the World Intellectual Property Organization.[20] The study found that fair use dependent industries are directly responsible for more than 18% of U.S. economic growth and nearly 11 million American jobs.[20] “As the United States economy becomes increasingly knowledge-based, the concept of fair use can no longer be discussed and legislated in the abstract. It is the very foundation of the digital age and a cornerstone of our economy,” said Ed Black, President and CEO of CCIA.[20] “Much of the unprecedented economic growth of the past ten years can actually be credited to the doctrine of fair use, as the Internet itself depends on the ability to use content in a limited and nonlicensed manner."
Basing your work off of anything of anyone else's is copyright infringement. Only the original author is allowed to make derivative works. If you take someone's window from a Flickr photo, you're deriving something from that other work. You're not allowed to do it, and a court would grant the photographer the ownership and copyright to your work.
Even better, if the building's facade or the window frame design are copyrighted, or the look of the building or window are trademarks for a brand, the building owners or window frame designers could get involved, and a court would likely assign them the rights to both the photograph and your art.
This is why photography is prohibited of certain buildings and works of art. This also includes, for example, listening to a song, and making a visual version of it. Or seeing a sculpture, and then going and making a 3D model of it from memory.
To use a famous example from music, The Verve used a five note sample of a Rolling Stones song, layered underneath nineteen other tracks of original work, in "Bittersweet Symphony." Even though they licensed the rights to the sample, a Rolling Stones manager sued the Verve anyway, and won. The Verve lost all rights to their most famous song, and never earned a dime from it.
Whatever you think your "rights" are under "fair use" or "what I heard while drunk on the internet" are almost certainly wrong. Fair use basically provides for sampling for education or criticism, e.g. so a university can't get sued for using an example in class, and a newspaper can't get sued for writing a bad review.
There's no such thing as "fair use" to steal even a tiny piece of a work because "but I'm not going to make any money from it." You're still not allowed to do it.
And since we're on the topic, I also hope you're not using photos of real people without model releases. Those photo galleries of mugshots? Yeah, you're not allowed to derive faces from those. Privacy issues are civil, and distinct from federal copyright issues. If someone recognizes their face in your work, you're going to have your ass handed to you.
www.pontusb.com come get some!
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/
UK version (334pg consolidated)
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cdpact1988.pdf
Are you saying you can't be inspired by something you see?
I'm kinda confused
Copyright protection extends across all mediums. You can't read Heinlein and make a 3D model based on his descriptions of powered armor.
But, the idea of powered armor? Of human exoskeletons? Even Heinlein probably cribbed that. Think for yourself, do some original design work, and you have nothing to worry about.
Except for someone complaining that all you made was another fucking space marine.
Oh, and since Ferg and kat were nice enough to post references, here's a good FAQ from Chilling Effects on derivative works: http://www.chillingeffects.org/derivative/faq.cgi. You two get gold stars.
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/
Mostly from the filmmaker point of view. But it clarifies many false assumptions regarding the current laws.
If I understand well, according to the example in that book the current law is :
'Creative works are automatically copyrighted. And if there is no copyright notice, it's up to you to track the rights owner down.'
But the next law might be :
'If there is no copyright notice, do whatever you want.' ?
Crazy...
Hmmm... now where have I seen that monster before?
(unless the same company made both)
technically, huge corporations are people too.
what happened to "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" ?
oh, and if copyright exerted their claws on the music industry, 100% of hip hop wouldn't exist.
all the artwork of movie stars? gone.
this?
gone.
if all copyright law was exerted with full force, all art would gradually diminish until all that was left was a bickering crowd of angry greedy artists suing eachother over copyrights over trivial copyright issues (the layer mask used on model X was taken from my copyrighted picture of Y)
instead of creating art.
and how about artistic style?
if "fantasy" was copyrighted,
norway would sue tolkien for using the word "troll" and "dwarf"(both creatures of norwegian mythology) and tolkien would've sue every fantasy-style game in existence for using "orc" and "elf"
D&D wouldn't exist. warcraft wouldn't exist. HOMM wouldn't exist.
i say you're lucky that some artists don't give a flying fuck about copyright,
or our world would be poorer because of that.