May 12, 2008 by Stephanie L. Grant

<<>>A Nation of Thieves: H.R.5889 Orphan Works Act of 2008

I doubt that it was the move to Washington, DC that made my designer boyfriend so political. Where every other person on the street is some sort of an activist, lobbyist, or government worker, I doubt that it was merely the move here that did it. No. I think what finally moved him from being 'opinionated' to actually active was the fact that Berman, Coble, Conyers, and Smith (all congressmen) were planning to steal his rights to about 15 years of creative work.

Now, I admit that I thought Sean was being a bit hysterical about the effects of the 'Orphan Works Act' when I first heard about them. Maybe exaggerating? I mean, what could one bill passing through Congress have anything to do with me?

I ignored the rants for a while.

It wasn't until I heard Sean 'strategizing' with others on ways to 'hurt' clients and artists that I started to pay attention... and couldn't believe that even Congress could be this stupid and anti-economy, anti-artist, anti-writer, anti-creative for the sake of money and corporation.

Here's the gist of it:

If you thought that your creative work was protected by copyright, know that those rights end as of this summer. Designs, photographs, paintings, poems, short stories, plays, blogs, cool scripts, web sites... if you don't rush to
register the copyrights, they could very well be owned by somebody that does. At the very least, they could be bundled together with other works and sold without your permission, used, manipulated, changed... you will
not be able to do anything about it other than try to sue to get (after paying all the court costs) a 'fair and reasonable price' for the theft, etc. etc. Do your research. Go here and read this article. It has had 17,000 hits in the past four days, over half of them in the last day:>

<<>>http://rasadesign.com/orphan-works-bill.html
>

<<>>These men are spearheading the bill and fast-forwarding it through Congress.
>

<<>>Rep. Howard Berman [D, CA-28]
and 3 Co-Sponsors
Rep. Howard Coble [R, NC-6]
Rep. John Conyers [D, MI-14]
Rep. Lamar Smith [R, TX-21] >

Don't become a victim. At this point, while it seems that it is physically impossible to stop the bill, the next step is to make it hurt - the media companies, clients that have to pay for creative works - in other words, make it owned.

FOR EXAMPLE: 

Dear New York Times,

    I am writing to inform you that my company has registered your article, "X," and only copyright to INSERT TITLE HERE. Your use of that article is in violation of our copyright and we request that you pay a fair amount for the use of that article.

Sincerely,

John P. CEO

Don't be bulldozed. Get on the bandwagon and make this bill hurt.