Back in January, I blogged about Orphan Works Legislation - at that time I suspected that a lot of misinformation was being disseminated by some. In the meantime, I found this additional information on myartspace, which was published August 2008. Please read this, as well as the links I provided in my earlier blog on the subject.
The bottom line is: DON'T PANIC - there is no reason to shell out a lot of money paying for registries to protect your work. Publishing on many of the free (or low cost) art and photo sites, and supplying relevant keywords that make it easier for the authorship of your work to be found in a diligent search, should suffice to protect your copyright against infringement.
In January I wrote:
Currently, there are many art and photo sites on the internet, and from what I read, I don't need a "paid for registry" (though some poor sap might be conned into that) - the existing ones (and any that may follow to make a quick buck) , in my opinion, rate on the same level as Vanity Galleries.
The (free) service ConceptArt speaks of is also served by many other sites (I belong to oodles of art and photo sites, besides my own website, and through any one of them searchers can get my contact easily, so none of my works are 'orphaned')............
Excerpt from the myartspace blog by Brian Sherwin, interviewing Alex Curtis (Alex Curtis is the Director of Policy and New Media for Public Knowledge):
BS: My understanding is that if the Orphan Works bill is passed artists will have to pay to be placed on online registries affiliated with the government in order to make sure that their copyrights are protected.
AC: No, no, no. There are a lot of misconceptions about this, .....
Under orphan works, nothing with regards to registration changes. Period. You don't have to lift a finger for your work to be copyrighted, in the same way you don't today.
The talk about "visual registries" or "online databases" that you might have heard with orphan works, are all efforts to try to make it easier for artists to be found.
BS: I've also read that some artists are concerned that they will not be able to afford to protect their works .......
AC: As I said above, nothing in orphan works requires any artists to spend any additional money to register their works--whether that be at the Copyright Registry or with some online service....................
When I talk about these services, I think about sites like Flickr.com that allow anyone to upload as many images as they want for free.
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Note: These excerpts are taken out of context; for a full understanding, please read the entire blog by Brian Sherwin on the myartspace website.
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Addendum March 5th:
About Copyright
It is also a good idea to protect your copyrights by marking your photos accordingly. By this, I mean not just visually on your picture, but hidden in the File Info on your photos:
Tutorial about adding Copyright Info to your Photos in Photoshop.
Note: however, this info, and all exif data is lost if photo is "Save(d) for Web". Therefore: "Save As" is the way to go. The file size may be a bit larger, but all file info is retained and can be accessed. It is not advisable to post high resolution pictures on the web. At 72 dpi a 600 pixel size picture has little commercial value, yet shows up well on the screen.
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myartspace>blog: Art Space Opinions: Public Knowledge and the Orphan Works Bill
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