Libracorn Chronicles

Joanne Fink of Lakeside Design and Brenda Pinnick of Brenda Pinnick designs have been strong advocates in our fight against the Orphan Works bill.  This weekend at the summer CHA show, Megan Araujo from When Creativity Knocks had a chance to interview Joanne and Brenda.

 

Not many people know about this bill and unfortunately it is something that affects EVERYONE even down to all the “moms” out there who share photos and videos on the Internet with their family. Getting the word out about what this bill is and the ramifications it will cause is incredibly important.  Tell everyone you know about it.  You can get more info about this at http://www.owoh.org.

 

Several people Jeanine and I have come across knew nothing about this bill and were shocked to find out how broad the implications will be if this passes in its current version.  There are others (are you one of them?) who are having a hard time even believing this could possibly be happening.  Could the US really change the copyright laws like this?

 

When this bill passes (in the state that it is written), the current copyright law we enjoy – which is passive rights – will turn into active rights.  Right now when you design something or take a photo of your children you automatically own the copyright to that image – you don’t have to do anything to be entitled to that right.  If this bill passes, all images will need to be registered in order to be protected under the copyright law turning copyright into something you will have to actively secure.

 

And worse yet, if someone wants to use an image and does a “diligent” search and turns up nothing regarding the author, they would be entitled to use the image for their own commercial purposes without permission from the author.  That is truly scary.

 

From what I understand, the bill WILL pass.  We can’t stop it now.  What the opposition team is trying to do is slow the passing down long enough to be invited out to talk and educate congress regarding what will happen if the bill is passed in its current state.  We are hoping to get several key points of verbiage changed.

 

There are more issues surrounding the bill.  But in general terms that’s what is being proposed and how it will affect the average joe citizen.   Please take a moment to watch the video to get a better understanding of the importance of joining us in this fight to oppose this bill.

 

[flv]http://www.whencreativityknocks.com/seyretfiles/uploads/videos/user_63/user_63_vhdw3pa1709rgk.flv[/flv]

 

If you want to post this video on your blog, the WhenCreativityKnocks website has posted code you can use.   I was unable to get their code to work in my word press blog.  So instead I installed this Word Press video plugin and used a direct video URL.  The direct video URL is

 

http://www.whencreativityknocks.com/seyretfiles/uploads/videos/user_63/user_63_vhdw3pa1709rgk.flv

 

Please help us in this fight.  On the Orphan Works website there is a page of different things you can do to help us – from sending e-mails, calling to signing an online petition.   Check it out and join us!