Get Involved
VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION TO
H.R. 5889 - The Orphan Works Act of 2008 and
S. 2913 - The Shawn Bentley Orphan Act of 2008
Action Plan—November 2, 2008
What can you do to help protect your copyrights?
1. TAKE ACTION NOW … before it is too late. The House will most likely try to pass the Orphan Works bill during a lame duck session in November.
2. WRITE: If you haven’t already clicked on the link to send a letter to your representative, please do that now. USE THIS LINK:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321
3. CALL members of the Judiciary Committee (see list in downloads section) and tell them the following:
- You oppose this controversial bill
- We do not need to have a copyright crisis on top of an economic crisis
- Ask them NOT TO ADOPT THE SENATE VERSION OF THE BILL
- Ask them not to pass the House’s version of the bill without a full and open hearing
4. SPREAD THE WORD—
- if you belong to an arts organization, please share this information with them.
- If you haven’t yet imposed on your friends, family, neighbors and colleagues to contact their representatives, NOW is the time to ask for their help. (If you have already asked, please do it again.)
To find phone numbers for your representatives, go to the Illustrators´ Partnership Orphan Works site.
5. SPEAK OUT about how the legislation will affect you and your business.
- Help raise public awareness by telling your friends, families and colleagues about the problems with the legislation.
- Ask them to contact their congressional leaders too.
- There are form letters for the "friends and families" of artists provided on the IPA’s CapWiz site:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11389061
6. TELL your personal story.
- If you have a blog, post information on your blog.
- If you don’t have a blog ask a friend who does to post it, or put it in the comment card in the ’contact us’ section of the website and we will post it on our blog.
7. SHARE information about the bills with every arts organization you belong to.
- Ask if we can list their name as one of the groups opposing the legislation.
- If so, we need the name, description of the group/purpose, number of members, contact information and contact person.
- Again you can provide that information on a comment card in the ’contact us’ section of this website.
8. READ the bills and learn more about the legislation.
- Click here to read the House bill with our comments inserted:
- Click here to read the Senate bill with our comments inserted:
- If you want to track and read the legislation (HR 5889 and S.2913) off the Federal Government’s official website: http://thomas.loc.gov
TALKING POINTS:
1. The bills will allow anyone to use an illustration, design, photograph, musical composition, film or piece of writing for any purpose- without the copyright holder’s knowledge or permission - if they are unable to find the copyright holder after a still-to-be-defined "reasonably diligent search."
2. The bills will allow an infringer to create-and copyright-a derivative work even if the copyright holder of the original work objects.
3. The bills require that creators digitize all their intellectual property at their own expense and hand it over to privately owned commercial databases in an effort to protect it. Unregistered work will be exposed to infringement by any party in the US for any reason, no matter how commercial or distasteful.
4. The bills "limit" any effective penalties for infringement, which currently help creators protect their copyrights. This means wherever an infringer successfully asserts an orphan works defense, the copyright holder will not be able to recoup court costs and legal fees, nor will they receive statutory damages, court costs and legal fees. While statutory damages are seldom sought by artists they have proven extremely effective at deterring rampant and willful infringement.
5. The bills will effectively strip every citizen of the passive copyright protection we now enjoy because they will nullify the creator’s exclusive right of copyright to any form of intellectual property. This right is currently ensured to every citizen upon creation whether or not the work is ever registered with the Copyright Office.