Orphan Works bill sux

PaCrappa · Post by **PaCrappa** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:27 pm

Thievin asswipes: http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Colu ... le_no=3605

Discuss.

Nuke · Post by **Nuke** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 5:50 pm

RAGE!
The world is run by thieves and villains...

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:01 pm

Oh, crud.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:02 pm

shocking

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:40 pm

OBJECTION!

http://kynn.livejournal.com/799971.html

Whew. What a relief.

Cromarty · Post by **Cromarty** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 9:07 pm

All I've found so far regarding the orphan works bill is this:
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat031308.html
from.. last month.
Easy to find stuff much like the article in the first post, though.

What happened on Thursday?

Battlesmurf · Post by **Battlesmurf** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:04 pm

OBJECTION!

lol.>I just think phoneix right : )

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:16 pm

That was the intent all right.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:30 pm

article would be tl;dr if I wasn't interested

Guy seems more than a little histrionic, maybe rightfully so, but jeez.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 12:41 am

I'm not familiar with the bill (which I'm not sure even exists, since I can't find a single citation, and there seems to be no news on eldred.cc, lessig.org, eff.org, or freeculture.org about it), but he definitely doesn't even understand what an orphan work is. His description of the concept is actually a description of the public domain, and I suspect that his entire analysis and outrage are based on the idea that this bill will instantly nullify the vast majority of existing copyrights. It doesn't help his case that the entire article reads like an extended hoax email, complete with an incarnation of "forward this to all your friends".

Ozymandiaz1260 · Post by **Ozymandiaz1260** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 1:05 am

Can we get a link to the actual bill?

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:24 am

The ironic thing is that many of us in the classic gaming community were (still are, probably!) in favor of the legislation for what it could potentially mean for orphaned games (arcade games to some extent, but computer games in particular).

I haven't read the actual bill, but it seems that if you're an artist and can prove you created a work that there is nothing to fear here. It's not orphaned if you keep track of it.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:31 am

Ozymandiaz1260 wrote:Can we get a link to the actual bill?

As far as I can tell, there is no actual bill yet; the issue just came up again about a month ago in the House Judiciary Committee.

doodude · Post by **doodude** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 2:37 am

Dosent everything from patented medications to game consoles to fried chicken recipes to that doohicky on your car to everything on the planet have to be re-patented &/or re-copywrited (sic) at some point?

Dosent some things like medication simply lose all rights of ownership after a time?

Ive never considered the so-called "artist" situation but then Ive never really considered anyone else's plight to remain in control of their "whatever" either.

Could someone 'splain me what the diff is so I can be a bit more informed on this subject, please?

By the way, I dont want to see any more quoting of my wise words on this forum without a little something in my paypal account, ya here!?

Ozymandiaz1260 · Post by **Ozymandiaz1260** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 3:39 am

Drug companies spend millions or in some cases even billions of dollars to come up with new and safe drugs. There's a certain period where only they can sell their drug, and sell it for whatever amount that they want. Considering the amount spent on creating it, that's the only way they would stay in business creating new drugs. After that period is up other companies can go about making generic versions of the medication and sell it for much less, so people without insurance or people whose insurance won't cover it don't necessarily have to go without the drugs that they need. That's more of a moral thing though, and isn't connected to art in any way.

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:04 am

doodude wrote:Dosent everything from patented medications to game consoles to fried chicken recipes to that doohicky on your car to everything on the planet have to be re-patented &/or re-copywrited (sic) at some point?

In a properly working legal system "re-patenting" and "re-copyrighting" are generally impossible. Some systems have had a renewal system, but there is still an overall limit. The bargian is that the author/inventor gets a term of exclusivity, and after that it's available for anyone to use.

doodude wrote:Dosent some things like medication simply lose all rights of ownership after a time?

Medicine is not special in this regard. Patents and copyrights have limited terms in general; this is even a Constitutional requirement in the United States, but it is a practical requirement anyway.

doodude wrote:By the way, I dont want to see any more quoting of my wise words on this forum without a little something in my paypal account, ya here!?

Please do some reading on the concept of "Fair Use" or "Fair Dealing" in copyright.

Ozymandiaz1260 wrote:Drug companies spend millions or in some cases even billions of dollars to come up with new and safe drugs. There's a certain period where only they can sell their drug, and sell it for whatever amount that they want. Considering the amount spent on creating it, that's the only way they would stay in business creating new drugs.

That's debatable; last I heard, they typically spend more money on marketing than on R&D, and much of the underlying research is funded with taxes. What's more, they sometimes engage in underhanded tactics to delay generics from coming to market, or even delay the release of an improved drug until their patent on the current formulation is about to run out.

Ozymandiaz1260 · Post by **Ozymandiaz1260** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:21 am

I didn't say that big drug research companies were ethical, I just explained the way that I understand the law to work. I don't know how much tax money goes to them though...

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Sun Apr 13, 2008 4:56 am

Ozymandiaz1260 wrote:I didn't say that big drug research companies were ethical, I just explained the way that I understand the law to work.

It's not solely a question of ethics; the point I was trying to make is that they often seem to invest more effort in milking patents on existing drugs than in developing new ones.

Ozymandiaz1260 wrote:I don't know how much tax money goes to them though...

The main thing isn't that tax money goes to them directly (although that probably does happen to some extent), but that much of the fundamental research leading to new drugs is done by tax-supported university and government labs.

Anyway, this doesn't have anything to do with orphan works, which are strictly a copyright issue. Patents require a lot of paperwork and have much shorter terms (whereas copyrights are automatic and last 90+ years), so there's little risk of them becoming orphaned.

Minzoku · Post by **Minzoku** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:11 pm

Ex-Cyber wrote:
Ozymandiaz1260 wrote:Can we get a link to the actual bill?
As far as I can tell, there is no actual bill yet; the issue just came up again about a month ago in the House Judiciary Committee.

Here is the REPORT THAT ORPHAN WORKS NEED TO BE ADDRESSED NOTE NOT A BILL OR LAW, and here is a discussion of what the report means in terms of how copyright currently works and what would actually be covered by what new law governing treatment of orphan works that HAS NOT YET BEEN CREATED.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:02 pm

Jesus Christ. Didn't anybody read the post I quoted? I said it close to the beginning of the thread that it was a false alarm.

Cromarty · Post by **Cromarty** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:02 pm

^Not entirely a false alarm.

Cromarty wrote:http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat031308.html

Statement of Marybeth Peters
The Register of Copyrights
before the
Subcommittee on Courts,
the Internet, and Intellectual Property,
Committee on the Judiciary

United States House of Representatives
110th Congress, 2nd Session

March 13, 2008
The “Orphan Works” Problem and Proposed Legislation

My fault for not clearly stating what it was I originally linked to.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 12:17 am

Here is something else that may be relevant to artists - authors in particular, for the time being. Harper Collins has revealed a new unit. Their plans for operation are:

- No royalties for authors, instead authors take a share of profits (50% was mentioned multiple times but might not be accurate)
- Online advertising only (lol)
- No returns (from bookstores, I think)

Various takes on the issue:
http://community.livejournal.com/theinf ... 48834.html
http://www.booksquare.com/harpercollins ... uncements/

Personally? If you don't advertise it don't sell, right? On the other hand, who sees book ads before they go into the bookstore?

PaCrappa · Post by **PaCrappa** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:05 am

Specineff wrote:OBJECTION!

Well that's good news.

Minzoku · Post by **Minzoku** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 7:35 am

Specineff wrote:Jesus Christ. Didn't anybody read the post I quoted? I said it close to the beginning of the thread that it was a false alarm.

This is the normal reaction to "ZMOG SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS VAGUELY THREATENING TO MY FANFICS I PROTEST WITH VIOLENCE EVEN THO I DON READ WHAT IS ACTUALLY PORPOSED"

like, you wouldn't believe some of the wild rumours I hear about things that haven't even gotten going yet--they're just talking.

I think, yes, there should be something governing, "What if I have this old photo of my grandparents and I want to make copies of it but I have no idea who to contact about copyright and I've been trying for ten years to find who took it with no success so what am I going to do?" Like, I think being forbidden from copying photos in such a case is ridiculous, and having to purchase a transfer of copyright from every professional photographer EVAR is a hassle, BUT this is the kind of stuff they're talking about that needs to be handled, however it ends up being handled.

What it's NOT is changing/obliterating existing copyright law on existing, enforceable copyright--only removing the question surrounding the questionable stuff.