Legal Art Theft

Shadow · Post by **Shadow** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:48 am

On dA today, while reading a journal, I found out about this,

"Orphaned Works"

Meaning, that if you don't register your art work, it can be legally stolen, registered by the infringer, and then used publicly, with not so much as a blink of an eye the creators' way. I know the Nexus is strongly Art/Writing based, so anything that we have drawn or written can be used without our permission and legally stolen. I also know that most of us don't have the time/money to register EVERYTHING we had ever put effort into.

If you haven't heard about this yet, here is an article that was written that explains most of it:

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Colu ... 605&page=1

**This article is not an official refrence to the actual bill itself, it is a written oppinion**

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:38 am

Old news. No doom.

There's two things that people in the art community often forget:

We either WANT copyright to protect our work, or we WANT our 'internet information to be free'. We *cannot* have it both ways.

The 'orphaned' works are exactly that. If no one claims them and cannot reasonably control their own presence anywhere - anyone who does "find" the art can use it. It is *intended* to be used for things which are outside the actually credible copyright act.

NOTHING supercedes the copyright laws, by the way. NOTHING. Everything we make is ours to keep.

Plus: this bill has never passed, and I doubt it ever will. There is enough arguments about the 70+ year extention for dead authors/artists to make our law makers aware that we the current generation don't want to have to stand for that. BUT it's the current generation actually looking for things to *take* and use. Ironic, I think.

Shadow · Post by **Shadow** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 7:56 pm

Okay, thanks for clearing it up for me. I've never seen it before so it rather alarmed me. I didn't know that this had been brought up before.

Shard · Post by **Shard** » Sat Apr 12, 2008 8:51 pm

I'd still recommend hitting your local representatives and senators and such, there are plenty of links to petitions and the like. I signed them, already. That was a ways back