Yet Another Orphan Works Update

For those following the issue, I received this e-mail alert this morning:

From the Illustrator's Partnership: According to our sources THE HOUSE WILL TRY TO PASS THE ORPHAN WORKS BILL TODAY 10.3.08 If this Bill is only meant to help libraries and museums, why did they draft it behind closed doors? Why have the doors been opened wide for commercial infringement of the work of living authors actively licensing their work? Why do they want to pass it when nobody's looking? Why do they want to re-write copyright law without an open debate? Stop this effort to give content to Big Internet firms by undermining copyright law. Get the word out. · Light up Washington and home offices of your Congressman. · Contact the media. · Deny them cover. Do not let them hide. Tell them we will hold each of them accountable. THE MESSAGE for your Congressman, Key Leaders, Aides, Media · The "Dark Archive" - where infringers can register their paperwork in secret - will not protect our copyrights. · An "Open Archive" - with orphaned work exposed to to the public - would be a come-and-get-it bank for plagiarists and infringers. · Artists cannot monitor tens or hundreds of thousands of images every day to see if somebody somewhere has infringed their work. · There are more than a trillion images subject to orphaning each day. · If someone can't find me, that doesn't mean I've orphaned my work. · An unsuccessful search for a property owner should not be a license to steal. · Artists should not have to digitize their life's work at their own expense to comply with a law they don't want or need. · The high cost compliance would make compliance prohibitive. · The loss of exclusive rights would undermine contractual agreements with clients. · We cannot sell exclusive rights to clients if others can publish our work without our knowledge or consent. · The loss of exclusive rights would devalue our entire inventories of work. · Small business owners should not be forced to subsidize the business models of Big Internet firms. · No rational business owner should have to give access to their inventory, metadata, client contact information, etc. to outside business interests. Tell lawmakers to prevent passage of this bill until it can be subjected to an open, informed and transparent public examination. Tell them this is no way to re-write copyright law. Tell them it will affect millions of rights holders worldwide. Tell them you would support a true orphan works bill, but this is not it. Tell them to to consider the amendments presented by the Illustrators' Partnership, Artists Rights Society and Advertising Photographers of America Phone, fax, email these Congresspeople immediately DELAHUNT Phone: (202) 225-3111 Fax (202) 225-5658 Phone: (617) 770-3700 Fax: (617) 770-2984 CONYERS Phone: (202) 225-5126 Fax: (202) 225-0072 Phone: (313) 961-5670 Fax: (313) 226-2085 NADLER Phone: (202) 225-5635 Fax: (202) 225-6923 Phone: (212) 367-7350 Fax: (212) 367-7356 BERMAN Phone: (202) 225-4695 Fax: (202) 225-3196 Phone: (818) 994-7200 Fax: (818) 994-1050 PELOSI AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov Phone: (202) 225-4965 Fax: (202) 225-8259 Phone: (415) 556-4862 Fax: (415) 861-1670 HOYER steny.hoyer@mail.house.gov Phone: (202) 225-4131 Fax: (202) 225-4300 Phone: (301) 474-0119 Fax: (301) 474-4697 YOUR REPRESENTATIVE To find Washington and District Office phone, fax and web forms for your Representative http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/dbq/officials/ and enter your zip code YOUR LOCAL MEDIA To find the contacts for your Local Media go to http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/dbq/media/ and enter your zip code - Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party. _______________________________________________________________ For news and information: Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/ Over 75 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists. INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267 CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson __________ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act." The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again. If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

STOP THE U.S. ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Orphan Works Passed in Senate

For those interested, I received this e-mail last night:

"FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works Opposition: Plan B SEPT 27 Yesterday, in a cynical move, the sponsors of the Senate Orphan Works Act passed their controversial bill by a controversial practice known as hotlining. With lawmakers scrambling to raise 700 billion dollars to bail out businesses that are "too big to fail," the Senate passed a bill that would force small copyright holders to subsidize big internet interests such as Google, which has already said it plans to use millions of the images this bill will orphan. With the meltdown on Wall Street, this is no time for Congress to concentrate our nation's copyright wealth in the hands of a few privately owned corporate databases. The contents of these databases would be more valuable than secure banking information. Yet this bill would compel creators to risk their own intellectual property to supply content to these corporate business models. That means it would be our assets at risk in the event of their failure or mismanagement. As David Rhodes, President of the School of Visual Arts has said, the Orphan Works bill would socialize the expense of copyright protection while privatizing the profit of creative endeavors. Copyright owners neither want nor need this legislation. It will do great harm to small businesses. We already have a banking crisis. Congress should not lay the groundwork for a copyright crisis. --Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Illustrators' Partnership NOW FOR PLAN B We MUST try to stop the House Judiciary Committee from folding their bill (HR5889) and adopting the Senate version. PLEASE EMAIL CONGRESS TODAY. If you've done it before, do it again! It takes only a minute to use our new special letter. Click on the link below, enter your zip code, and take the next steps. Thanks to all of you who heeded the call to action yesterday. http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321 _______________________________________________________________ For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/ Over 70 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses. The Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write. If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area. Please post or forward this email to any interested party."

You Know You Live in Texas...

when you find a lizard in your house. Last week I found a tiny lizard skittering up the wall next to the fireplace. Fortunately we were able to catch him in a paper cup before the cat had any idea of what was going on. I tried to take a picture of him, but it was dark outside and he was rather camera shy. I think he might have been a Mediterranean Gecko. It must be lizard-hatching season or something because another baby lizard had taken up residence in my fern for a while. He was a little less camera-shy:

Well, I’m just beginning work on a new book project, so I probably won’t be posting much by way of art for quite some time. I’ll give out more details about the book when I’m closer to finishing and when the title is finalized and such. In the meantime, here are a couple of illustrations I painted for Spider last year. The (true!) story was about some beavers that found a bag of stolen money and used it to construct their lodge. I was particularly pleased with the way the water turned out on the second piece:

By the way, if you happen to be in a bookstore check out the September issue of Highlights. I painted a rooster to accompany one of the articles!

Also, for those following the Orphan Works Issue - here's the SBA Orphan Works Roundtable Webcast.

For those of you following or interested in the Orphan Works issue, I've just received this e-mail from the Illustrator's Partnership:

"FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

ORPHAN WORKS BILL HOTLINED

THIS MEANS IT COULD PASS THE SENATE THIS AFTERNOON
PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS IMMEDIATELY

ASK THEM TO PUT A "HOLD" ON THE BILL:
S2913 THE SHAWN BENTLEY ORPHAN WORKS ACT OF 2008

TELL THEM YOU OPPOSE THIS CONTROVERSIAL BILL
ASK THEM NOT TO PASS IT WITHOUT A FULL AND OPEN HEARING
WARN THEM THAT IT WILL DO GREAT HARM TO SMALL BUSINESSES

To find your Senators' phone numbers go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works site:

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

At the top of the home page, click on "Elected Officials"
You'll find a US map:
Click on your state,
Then "Senators,"
Then click on each Senator's name,
Then click "Contact."
This will give you their phone numbers.

Please phone and fax them both."

Squirrels in Summer

We've had the most blistering heat for weeks and weeks here. So we've been pretty much confined to the indoors as of late which I suppose is just as well. Less time outside means getting a little bit more time for work.This piece was a private commission. The buyer was particularly fond of an older painting of mine, "Cherry-picking Mice," so we created a design very similar to that one. It's intended to be the first of four small seasonal paintings. How appropriate to paint a summer scene in the summer! It seems I'm usually painting Christmas scenes in the spring and summer scenes in the winter, for once I'm painting 'in season.'

Illness, Orphan Works, & Some Flowers

Where does the time go? I just noticed that my last post was in early April - and now it's July! Where did I disappear to for so long? Well, I fell quite ill in the end of April and did little more than stay home, sleep, and watch tv for several weeks. I've never been so sick in all my life and hope that I'm never so sick again!

So, since then I've spent massive amounts of time researching and implementing a new crazy-strict diet that I'm trying out in the hopes that it will help to keep me healthy. Unfortunately (or fortunately), carrying out the diet requires a good deal of home-cooking, label-reading, and searching for obscure ingredients. This is not so bad to me since I like cooking, but my goodness, it has been a time-sink recently.

Anyway, I do have a new piece of art to post, but I'm holding it for a future post. I'd meant to post months ago about the Orphan Works Act that's currently in Congress, but sleeping on the couch seemed much more important (and unavoidable) at the time. So I know I'm really late on the subject, but in the off-chance that there's anybody left out there who still doesn't know about this - There are currently two bills making their way through government - the Senate version, S. 2913: Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 and the House version, H.R. 5889: Orphan Works Act of 2008. The bills set out to free up "orphaned works" (those which are no longer covered by copyright or whose copyright owners cannot be found) for use by cultural institutions, museums, libraries, etc. Sounds nice in principle, but the bills have been drafted in such a broad, sweeping manner that living copyright owners' work may be considered "orphaned" simply because an infringer/user could not locate the owner.

Most artists are upset about this legislation for many reasons -
- If someone else is using our work, without our permission/knowledge, than the exclusivity of our right to exploit the work (as set out in current copyright law) is null and void. We would lose a degree of decision making power regarding our own work. For those that don't know - it's very important to maintain exclusivity of the rights to one's works especially when licensing work to companies, as many arrangements are for specific exclusive rights, i.e. exclusive greeting card rights, etc.
- the possibility of needing to register our work with multiple (currently non-existent) databases to avoid unwanted use at unknown expense to the artist and potentially large amounts of time uploading art that would be better spent on making new art.
- the limitation on damages for unauthorized use
- violation of international copyright law
And so on.... Brad Holland of the Illustrators Partnership explains it in this audio interview. He's speaking in 2008, but referring to the 2006 versions of the bills since the 2008 versions were not available at the time. All the same, it is still relevant to the current proposals:

http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html

The Illustrators Partnership has tons of articles on the subject. The most current ones are at the bottom of the page. This one is set up as a Q & A.

For an opinion not directly from an artist, here's a letter to the House of Representatives from a lawyer who works with creative industries.

So, what to do - if you want to oppose these amendments, there are several pre-written, editable e-mail letters here. All you have to do is choose a letter, fill in your name and address and you're done.

For people outside the U.S. wishing to oppose the amendments, there's a letter here. Scroll to the bottom to find addresses where to send them. International voices are very important in opposing these bills as they will affect artists and creators globally.

And lastly, there's a petition, albeit not the most well-written one, here.

The broad manner in which these bills were written seem, to me at least, to be the product of a society and/or people that regard art & its inherent bundle of exclusive rights as something other than personal private property (which is exactly what it is - the "P" in "IP") and what artists do as something less than work. I'm all for cultural institutions getting access to truly orphaned works - just not at the expense of the living artists who create the content that will fill their halls in the future.

So, that's the last of my activism for today. Now, to happy-it-up around here with some pictures of wildflowers taken back in April pre-illness. These pictures were taken off the side of the highway on my husband's drive to work:

Road Trip!

Wildflower season isn't over yet, so I thought I'd try once more to find the sweeping fields of flowers that I'm so longing to see. I'd read that Marble Falls is a wildflower-heavy location, so we took the hour-long drive northeast out of Austin to see what we could find.

I can honestly say we did not find a shocking amount of wildflowers on the drive over, nor did I notice any wildflowers to speak of in Marble Falls - most likely because I don't really know where to look. It seemed that the best patches of flowers were along the highways right in and around Austin. But all was not lost - I planned ahead such that in the event we did not discover the desired wildflower treasure at the end of the journey, we would still have something else to explore. We drove just a little beyond Marble Falls and visited Longhorn Caverns. The picture is the entrance to the cave - all the pictures shot inside the cave were too dark to bother posting. It was a pleasant 70 degrees inside the cave - very nice respite from the warmer weather we've been having. Pretty neat place - during the prohibition years, the cave had served as a speakeasy complete with a dance-floor in a sizeable 'ballroom.'

After touring the cave, we took a hike along a short nature trail at the end of which were some old buildings. They were very sturdy buildings and looked surprisingly new for the age. One had a spiral staircase which you could climb to the top of a tower and lookout over the land.

Though I was a bit disappointed not to have found my long sought-after fields of wildflowers, I was glad we'd been able to explore yet another interesting part of Texas. But we weren't finished quite yet - just as we entered Austin, Chris noticed a side-road just off the highway that was lined with dense patches of bluebonnets. We quickly turned around and went back so I could take some pictures. It was just what I'd been looking for - lovely patches of blue dotted with the red of Indian paintbrush. A perfect end to a pleasant road trip.