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The Feds want to make your life a lot more challenging.
If you have gone to the trouble of legally copyrighting your work, that may not be enough to protect you.
There are two bills in congress
H.R.5889 - The Orphan Works Act of 2008
and
S.2913 - The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008s
Here's an Overview
• The Orphan Works Act defines an "orphan work" as any copyrighted work whose author any infringer says he is unable to locate with what the infringer himself decides has been a "reasonably diligent search." In a radical departure from existing copyright law and business practice, the U.S. Copyright Office has proposed that Congress grant such infringers freedom to ignore the rights of the author and use the work for any purpose, including commercial usage. In the case of visual art, the word "author" means "artist."
• This proposal goes far beyond current concepts of fair use. As acknowledged by the Register of Copyrights it is not designed to deal with the special situations of non profit museums, libraries and archives. It is written so broadly that it will expose new works to infringement, even where the author is alive, in business, and licensing the work.
• The bill would substantially limit the copyright holder's ability to recover financially or protect the work, even if the work was registered with the U.S. Copyright Office prior to infringement.
• The bill has a disproportionate impact on visual artists because it is common for an artist's work to be published without credit lines or because credit lines can be removed by others for feckless or unscrupulous reasons. This is especially true of art published in the Internet Age.
More info here - Take Action: Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work
I'm glad my stories about "Pencilboy vs. Crayoniac" aren't in circulation.
But seriously. We have to fight this.
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