Sunday, April 13, 2008

Grand Theft Artwork

I'm going to change gears for a minute here and rather than posting artwork (which I usually only get around to doing like, what, once every 3 months) I'm going to post about something that will directly effect every artist should it come to pass. What I'm talking about is the "Orphan Works" bill that our government is trying to sneak into law.

This bill first came to my attention after I read an article by Mark Simon on AWN's website (check it out here: http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3605&page=1 )
Basically, if passed it would require all pieces of artwork to be registered or else it would become an "Orphan Work" and would be up for grabs for anyone to own or even register themselves. It is a truly evil bill with some big supporters behind it (including non other than Bill Gates.)

I'm not really sure what I can do about it, but if anyone has any ideas or wants to get something going to stop it, please contact me and I will help out in anyway possible. Nothing pisses me off more than someone trying to make money off of someone else's hard work.