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UK Passes "Instagram Act"
kodiaktau writes "The UK govt passed the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act which effectively makes so-called 'orphaned' content posted on social media sites public domain. Corporations now only need to have made a "diligent search" to find the owner of the content before use. From the article: 'The Act contains changes to UK copyright law which permit the commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing, so-called "orphan works", by placing the work into what's known as "extended collective licensing" schemes. Since most digital images on the internet today are orphans - the metadata is missing or has been stripped by a large organization - millions of photographs and illustrations are swept into such schemes.'"
don't post shit you want kept to yourself online
Now does this mean that big corporations can scoop up these so-called "orphaned works" and then place their own copyright on them, or do they stay in public domain in perpetuity? If so that wouldn't be so bad, other than "diligent search" sounds like sending my teenage daughter into the other room to find something sitting behind something else.
I got here through a series of tubes
they are supposed to make more content privately owned! not the other way around... silly brits.
a) find image you want to use at site X
b) have someone strip the the image of identifying information and repost it at site Y
c) discover image at site Y lacking traceable information
d) do "due dilligence" based on image from site Y
e) declare image from site Y as 'orphaned'
f) PROFIT
My first thought, also.
signature is pants
With some luck, Google's "search similar images" function may make that scheme much harder
I also like tineye.com for image search based on an image. The database size isn't the biggest but I like the engine a lot. It can find photoshopped images too.
TODO create witty sig.
exactly. how could anyone not realize this was the intent?
Same, this is exactly what came to mind.
So does this go both ways... can individuals claim orphaned corporate content or do the corporates have YET ANOTHER special right?
Can a user use "orphaned-works" from companies too?
This is going to get so many people and companies in trouble.
So many of them won't even bother, or won't even know how, to do a simple reverse image search which can typically find out the location of any random persons image.
I found an image from a screencap of a FLASH FILE earlier today. How was I to know that there would be a picture of that exact scene on any site?
You can find damn near anything with reverse image search.
And there are quite a few sites that do it now, so they'd have no excuse.
Shall be interesting to see the first case of this. And likely hilarious.
English people aren't very smart.
I'll have to post an image I made when tineye.com was launched.
The error message it generated was something along the lines:
"We are sorry, TinEye did not return any results for 'tineye.jpg'
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
My first thought was that happening on accident. I've had text and code copied and posted with no attribution before, which would now make it public domain if in the UK? Doing that on purpose is easy though, and perhaps more of an issue.
Does this only apply to works where the copy right holder (which must be unknown) is in the UK? If so, this law means nothing. If not, it violated the international copyright treaty requiring respecting the copyright in the country of origin. Seems broken either way.
Anyway, someone please seed anonymized torrents in the UK. As long as its properly anonymized, we can all reseed it legally, since it a orphaned works from the UK, right? Just do a "diligent search", which finds no owner, and you're set!
can't you pretty much do the same thing nowadays anyways...?
Suppose I upload content that is copyrighted, and I do not own. I then orphan the account. Obviously, that cannot be brought into the public domain this way. Why should copyright be any different for content that I own and post. It just makes no sense. Wouldn't the person using this newly "public" content have to prove that the abandoned account was mine? This whole idea just baffles me.
surely this can't affect re-posting?
aaanyhow. since it enables sub licensing of the content, then twitter is likely to install a notice on their content that _they_ own the UK content and will license it forward(of course you could argue that they know who the copyright holder is.. and come to think of it, twitter probably already has that rule).
and it's just the britons who are fucked. it's not like you could take american content, download it in britain and claim immunity from court cases in USA. otherwise I have some t-shirts to print.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
It's about time somebody legalized 9gag, failblog, kuvaton, fukung and all those other great sites that make up the apex of the internet;-)
0x or or snor perron?!
Sounds to me like a pretty clear case where something like this really needs to be balanced by heavy penalties for stripping metadata without permission.
Basically seems that unless you register your work, you get no copyright.
How is it possible that copyright not only keeps being extended to prevent works of corporations from entering the public domain, but now other laws start stripping rights of the public for their own works for the benefit of corporations?
Yes, but when you're found out, the author can collect his license fee from you. With this scheme, the license is paid for collectively and the author can only recover a pittance from the collective licensing agency, and has to become a member of that organization to get anything at all.
It is now pointless to publish works if you're a small artist. This only leaves the option of working for hire.
We can't get access to orphaned films that are not available for sale?
I believe that should be part of ANY copyright law. In order for copyright to be maintained. A work of art must be available for sale within a 5 year period. Stop selling it, and you lose your copyright.
One can now post images of music, movies, software etc and have it be instant public-domain!
No more copyright in UK which means ThePirateBay could legally operate there (if they jump through the hoops correctly)
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
great.
What's preventing us -- normal people -- from doing the same thing with corporate-created images? Just the threat of lawyers?
It seems to me that watermarking is about to be much more prevalent. That's the only way to make metadata that can't easily be stripped off.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
With some luck, Google's "search similar images" function may make that scheme much harder
It's almost like you think corporations (that have interest in declaring the item "abandoned") will do a diligent search. Google "search similar images" function will be helpful if the searcher is trying to find the owner.
And if someone falsely declares an image to be "abandoned", what are the penalties, I wonder? Would the owner have to sue to recover his or her image ownership?
The abuse possibilities (for someone who has a legal department at ready) are practically endless!
This totally makes sense, but not if you restrict it to photos. When you find an audio or video file online where information identifying the owner is missing, all you have to do made a "diligent" search for the original owner and it's yours for free to use, resell, or whatever. No more lawsuits! Everybody's happy!
TFA's author uses only examples of corporations using content created by natural persons, but I see nothing in TFA so suggest that the law only operates in this direction. According to TFA, the law permits "commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing, so-called 'orphan works'." This would also protect an individual or small business which innocently uses an orphaned image. The legislation makes it possible to use orphaned works, which otherwise would be impossible to use legally, as it is impossible to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Wikipedia's summary of the problem is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works
This legislation could also prevent "copyright troll" situations like this: http://www.ryanhealy.com/getty-images-extortion-letter/
With some luck, Google's "search similar images" function may make that scheme much harder
No problem, just make the new image "sufficiently different" so Google's bot doesn't see the connection. Cut off something you weren't going to use, add a stupid frame into the jpeg itself . . .
Take a screen shot of the image. Now save as 1.jpeg, and you could start a hobby of taking pictures of pictures.....
Any publishing company would just print up a few copies every year on a laser printer, put them on a shelf in the warehouse, and price them at $100 on their website. Voila, it's "still available for sale".
.... some a$$hat took a photo of me, posted it on the web and didn't ask for my permission. Now it's potentially orphaned, and Wham I'm the face on the ads for selling selling A$$ cream for Joe Schmoe over in the UK and I can't stop it? /facepalm
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
Yes, the legitimate holder would indeed have to sue. Just as they have to sue under existing law. The procedure might have changed a bit, but the process isn't fundamentally different.
It's almost like you think corporations (that have interest in declaring the item "abandoned") will do a diligent search. Google "search similar images" function will be helpful if the searcher is trying to find the owner.
The way I read the post, it sounded more like ericloewe was suggesting that that would be a method the owner might use to prove in a court of law that due diligence was not performed.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Sharing is good. Copyright is bad.
I half agree with you. The problem is that you assume that everyone will give in an equal (or close) amount in the sharing. In reality, this rarely happens and it usually ends up some taking advantages of the situation -- only take but not share or mostly take and very little share. The Copyright is supposed to protect from those who only take (or steal). Again, nothing is perfect. A few others found a loop hole and exploit the Copyright protection -- trolls -- and that is the issue we are facing anywhere right now.
So complaining about copyright is purely bad is extreme; whereas, saying copyright is totally good is the other extreme. I believe copyright is neutral but good or bad comes from how people use it to their own advantages.
They're only electronic bits. Just a collection of 1's and 0's. So, it really shouldn't be a big deal if a corporation borrows it from you, right? They didn't actually steal anything, because you can still use it. . . . . .
Create an image representing some binary information. Repeat this process a billion times. Load these images into a program, compress them and call the resulting file .mp3.
All binary data could be 'orphaned' this way.
Well, the point is not to find the real copyright owner. The idea is to NOT find the copyright owner. "due diligence" means a lot of things if you have enough money to pay lawyers.
Shouting "Anybody here knows who this belongs to?" from behind your desk might be enough (again IF you have the right amount to pay lawyers. Don't try this if you are not a company.)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
So, I download the latest Hollywood blockbuster, re-title it giving it an absurd name, removing credits/publisher marks and maybe blurring/replacing the lead's face. Then I re-upload 'Deep Groat: Sub-Prime Deposit' (a.k.a Catwoman -it's a modern classic) on the Pirate Bay.
Our good UK subject comes along, downloads it and thinks 'Never heard of this!?' No idea who made it, no way of finding out.
That 'film' is now in the public domain?
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
Since locating the authors of any particular open source project is not always easy, one could claim very plausibly that they had attempted to track down the original copyright holder, and failed.
On the plus side, it also probably means that abandonware effectively automatically becomes public domain. Whether or not the original entity still controls it.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
So......when Google tries to publish orphaned works for everyone to read, copyright owners cry bloody river, but when user who doesn't know nothing about copyright law or how properly add copyright clauses adds a beautiful picture to social network, it's suddenly very legitimate for corporation to exploit this work.
Ok, this will bring socialism faster than any previous attempts. It's amazing how greed makes so much people plainly stupid.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
In other words, copyright law applies to their shit, but not ours...
a) find image you want to use at site X b) have someone strip the the image of identifying information and repost it at site Y c) discover image at site Y lacking traceable information d) do "due dilligence" based on image from site Y e) declare image from site Y as 'orphaned'
f) PROFIT
While IANAL and my ignorance of UK law exceeds that of US law; I doubt such a scheme would work. Due diligence would require at least a reasonable amount of effort searching for ownership information. It would seem to me if someone went before a court and should how a Google search could easily locate the image with ownership info or a copyright registration it would be hard to argue you performed due diligence. This act should be named the IP Lawyer Full Employment Act since it will no doubt result in court cases. I would venture most big corporations would be hesitant to rely on it to avoid any lawsuits. It is more likely the cheap ripoff artist companies that would try to use it as a defense and since they already rip off Luther's material I see little practical hangs if this become law.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
So how would one go about looking up who owns the copyright in Zero Wing, a video game published by Toaplan, which is now a defunct company?
You'd be messing with the time-honored tradition of The Vault and all the panic buys that occur as a result.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Look at it from a different angle. How is this very different from the people who've gone and declared some game as "abandonware" and decided that it's ok to pirate it?
Yes. Use any of the various image search engines and if the owner can be traced within first 1000 results, due diligence was not performed.
Also, even if due diligence was performed the violator should have to pay reasonable royalty fees. If dues diligence was not performed, then they have to pay punitive damages on top of royalties. /dream
Yea but the day that I did my search that search didn't show anything. So there!
That is a good point about the treaties. Thus the law is only applicable in the hilarious circumstance where they can say to a judge, "We know the owner is a U.K. citizen, but we don't know who."
Wait, wait, hold on. Did you honestly think that wouldn't happen? Were you seriously tricked THAT easily into believing "im anonymuss lol" is a magic bullet against corporations, the government, society, your school, your parents, or whoever else you think is evil this week? If not, why are you acting so surprised? If nobody steps up to take responsibility, nobody's able to defend anonymously-published stuff, and past that, you've lost all control over what you put out there.
Would the owner have to sue to recover his or her image ownership?
Yes. In that sense nothing has changed. If someone ripped off your work yesterday you would have to sue them. Now they have an additional defense of claiming the work was orphaned, but at best it might get them off the hook for deliberate infringement. They would still have to compensate you to the amount you would have received for licensing the image.
For this reason I don't think companies will be too quick to start using random images they find online. The risk of being sued and having to pay out if the copyright owner comes forward makes it unattractive.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Sure, that happens to be true for most of the digital images on the Internet, but what about all the other images on the Internet?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If it's not shot down by the first trials the European Union will eventually bitchslap this. It's not like UK can say that a single bit of data being read in the UK or traveling on English servers is free for grabbing, expecially data that was not generated within the UK. Also this is going to pose problems for every-fucking-one, including advertising agencies.
There's laws around here about money that might be claimable. The people responsible are supposed to do a diligent search. Somehow, they often manage to not find any contact information for, say, "University of Minnesota". What this means is that there will be full uncompensated commercial use of any picture on the Internet not copyrighted by somebody with deep pockets.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No, the problem is, this is the same fucking argument GPL advocates have been using for years to justify their attempts to force everybody to share source code, and pirates have been using for years to justify their attempts to take copies of shit without offering anything of value in return. People here on Slashdot love to argue how broken copyright is, and how sharing is good, and information wants to be free... but when suddenly it's THEIR precious, grainy, smudged, out of focus photographs that somebody might get some value out of without paying them millions in royalties, suddenly it's the end times and we're being turned into digital slaves.
I've been modded down, I can only assume that "-1, Overrated" is only because "-1, Uncomfortable Truth We'd Rather Pretend Didn't Exist" isn't an option on Slashdot. If you want to force everybody to share with you, don't be surprised when they demand backsies.
It need not be that complicated... check the Google cache. They remove the metadata for you. Watermark everything, or you may find grandma's picture in an ad for viagra.
As always when it comes to IP, the Register is wildly exaggerating to the point of trolling.
What this bill will actually do is allow museums to use orphan works, but only if they put the market value of a licence to use them into escrow, in case the owner is found later.
The details of how this will work haven't been published, but there's going to be a very interesting legal minefield in there.
What's a fair market value for a modern image where CC0 alternatives exist?
What they will do if an image is highly likely to be out of copyright? For example photo of Queen Victoria is almost certainly out of copyright, because the photographer probably died over 70 years ago. What's a fair market value for the rights to use one of the rare ones that isn't out of copyright because the photographer was young when he took it, and lived to a ripe old age, if plenty of public domain ones also exist?
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
But what would happen is that the *USA* would complain (even if it were only available under google.co.uk) about the works being used "without explicit agreement" (impossible for orphaned works).
Of course, you could complain that it is a breech of USA copyright yourself.
"But your honour, we did a diligent search first. We used /bin/false, and found no results!"
This means that corporations can steal from individuals and make money from works that should be in the public domain via these "collective licensing" schemes, yet orphan works are still not usable by the public at large.
Collective licensing is one of the biggest frauds and rip-offs of the 20th century. These organizations should be abolished completely.
Don't look at me; I'm fine with orphan works bills, although I'd prefer to just have registration, fee, notice, and deposit as strict formalities upon publication, public display, or public performance (possibly with a short grace period), so that most works, where the author doesn't care about a copyright, enter the public domain immediately.
Copyrights should be easy to get and extremely affordable, but not granted automatically, as that is quite harmful.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
This would be great if it was applied to all copyrights. Orphaned books and music and movies. Unfortunately i don't think that's what they have planned.
I'm really glad it's automatic, and don't see any harm in that part of copyright, on the contrary. I make it, so I own it, what's harmful there? That you can't take it and use it as you like, unless I actively take precautions?
I don't care too much about re-use of my works that I post online, but at the very least I'd like to be credited for it. And that's what automatic copyright allows me to require without hassle. It allows me to post my stuff online knowing there is at least some basic legal protection active. Having to register copyright for everything I post online just to get credit for it in case someone wants to re-use my photos or my ramblings, is a chore at best. It'd stop me from posting as much as I do. And that likely accounts for many many more people.
I found an MP3 of this song, but it didn't have the artist listed on it. That means I can keep it without paying for it, right?
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
Corporations rarely give to the public domain (look at Disney), yet we are allowing them to take what they want from it? Seriously?
Honestly, I think corporations shouldn't be allowed to use the public domain. Non Profit Companies should be allowed to.
Or here's a better idea, put copyright back to reasonable times (14 years) and then it can be free game for anyone or corporation.
Be seeing you...
Why do I suddenly feel like I'm gonna see coolface on the side of cereal packets, with some real bad 'le meme' text?
I'm really glad it's automatic, and don't see any harm in that part of copyright, on the contrary.
We should at most only grant copyrights when necessary to encourage an author to create and publish a particular work. If the author would've created and published anyway, the incentive is unnecessary and should not be provided. The best way to determine whether the copyright was needed or not is to let authors self-identify. An opt out system wont work, since authors who don't care about copyright won't care to disclaim it in almost all cases. An opt in system will work, since authors who so care will take at least modest action.
A system of formalities has other benefits too. Registering the work and providing notice in published copies places the public on notice and provides greater certainty: marked works and works found in the registry are claimed; others are fair game. Deposit of several high quality copies helps increase the size of the collection of our national library, and provides a few copies of last resort in case others are lost, damaged, or so rare as to be nigh impossible to use. Registration also solves the orphan works problem at issue here: by requiring copyright holders to provide updated contact information during the copyright period, it's easy to find the rights holders to seek their permission to use works; without an up to date registry, they can be very hard to track down. Likewise, it helps people know who the true rights holders are, so that deals aren't accidentally struck with the wrong people due to mistake or fraud.
And we know this works okay, because the US required registration for published works, and formalities, for a very long time, and it didn't cause any problems.
I make it, so I own it
That's not a good enough reason.
I don't care too much about re-use of my works that I post online, but at the very least I'd like to be credited for it.
Do you care enough to fill out a very simple form and pay a very modest fee? If you don't care to take such a small step, why should the rest of society care to grant you a copyright?
It'd stop me from posting as much as I do.
I do not believe that for an instant. Remember, copyright is an economic incentive, but it's not the only incentive to create works, nor even the most important one most of the time. You posted here because you had something to say, not because you thought you could make money off of a mere Slashdot post. Copyright should be limited to the things you think you can make money from, since that's all it's good at. It's a waste against the public to use it for anything else.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
You need to be a corporation to pull that off.
Excuse, me, but there is no such a thing as UK "citizen"
Her Majesty Elizabeth II
It can also be argued that, if you have enough lawyers and resources, due diligence from you should require more.
I make it, so I own it
That's not a good enough reason.
Why not? Why should something I create by nature be fair game, for anyone else to profit of? If I explicitly place it in the public domain or release it with a free license - then they can go ahead.
I don't care too much about re-use of my works that I post online, but at the very least I'd like to be credited for it.
Do you care enough to fill out a very simple form and pay a very modest fee?
Yes, I do. I would have to for everything I write - and that sucks big time.
First of all, I'm not in the US, so it'd have to be some institution local to me. Now, copyright is international (this in great contrast to patents, btw). It would suddenly become local - I would register in Hong Kong (where I live and where my creations are made nowadays). Or should I have to register in every single country I want my work protected?
I've published stories on a US based web site. Free to read for anyone; not free for others to take and publish on their own site. That's thanks to automatic copyright protection. Or would I have to register those in the US then? And what if I couldn't speak the local language there?
Also if you would require someone to check "the registry" to see if a work is copyrighted or not, they'd have to check all registries in all countries, one by one. And while matching text is relatively easy, matching images is getting harder and matching video or music is even worse.
Many of the stories mentioned above I published anonymously, and I like it that way. Yet anonymous doesn't mean no copyright - there are ways to contact me (via anonymous e-mail - well with enough effort probably traceable but anonymous enough for me), if someone really wants to use my story elsewhere. And then I may or may not give them permission.
And to come back on you not believing me on less publishing: well these slashdot posts indeed are not influenced by copyright. Photos that I post online, or stories that I post online, source code that I've published on github and sourceforge, even though I don't expect any economic benefit, I like to have copyright protection for. If only to keep my name attached to my work - in future those posts may become a reference for a job. I don't know now, but I'd like to keep the option open.
The current registration system in the US may work nicely for those that register their work - I've no idea how much work that is published, is actually registered. And that includes those huge amounts of holiday pictures posted online, all those web site templates released under CC licences, source code released under GPL or BSD licenses, etc. Or does Linus really updates his copyright registration for te ever changing Linux kernel (if he has this) for every single commit that's added?
I don't think so - I think that using something like google image search must be part of a diligent search. In which case image would show up at site X would show up with the relevant copyright information.
For those who don't follow UK politics, it is very important to remember who is in power to understand laws being introduced. What party is in power? One of the three corrupt ones. There are also only really three parties so it really doesn't matter. They are all corrupt and UK elections are really about voting for the party that people hate the least.
And this isn't just meant to be funny, the libdems were usually thought of as the nice but dim party, the moment they get a tiny sliver of power and come under some real scrutiny, the sleaze comes out.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
No, the work must be entirely anonymous - that is, no copy of it with attribution can exist within reasonable reach of the person looking for it. Just stripping metadata isn't enough if the work exists elsewhere with proper attribution. If you have made an awesome picture and have it on your blog - that's enough to protect it. If you make an awesome photo and upload it to some website anonymously with no contact information, then it's public domain. That seems fair enough to me.
It takes more than the metadata being stripped - the content in question has to be removed from the author's site or all attributions of the media to the author have to be removed from across the internet. Just stripping the metadata isn't enough, clearly.
Get sued because your dilligence wasn't very due, given that the same image was available at site X with declared metadata.
People seem to be getting confused here because they think that it is the FILE that is copyright; it is not. It's the image.
Of course, if you then have to sue the large company for copyright violation, this might be quite hard, because they have
more money and lawyers than you. But this is not substantially changed by this act; the law is a game for the rich now,
as it was yesterday.
Could steganography be the answer?
Due diligence has many, many years of case law behind it. Before this bill, the likely damages to someone popping up
and saying "hey that is my photo", after an organisation had made extensive searches for use of some material would
be small. Especially compared to the damages to someone who, for example, had their photo taken, the metadata
deliberately removed, then the image used without compensation.
Yes. Use any of the various image search engines and if the owner can be traced within first 1000 results, due diligence was not performed.
I think that due diligence would depend on the size of the company, as it does now. If a Google or Microsoft want to use an image in a campaign that costs millions then sure they should check tractability in at least the first 1000 results. If a mom & pop guesthouse puts an image on their website that has a total budget of $50 a year then checking the first page of results would probably do.
Excuse, me, but there is no such a thing as UK "citizen" Her Majesty Elizabeth II
Wrong, since the British Nationality act of 1981 we have been citizens. I may have been born a subject but I will die a citizen.
For this reason I don't think companies will be too quick to start using random images they find online. The risk of being sued and having to pay out if the copyright owner comes forward makes it unattractive.
Why would you think this? Companies regularly steal images online today even with full attribution, knowing that they are violating copyright. In light of that, why do you think that they would stop when it's become even easier for them ?
In case you didn't know already:
Facebook strips all metadata from all images that you upload. It's the reason a fairly well-known professional photographer I happen to know doesn't use it for anything, up to and including not having any pictures of himself on Facebook and asking his friends to not post pictures of him.
It's disrespectful. For some exif data like location, it's actually nice, but there should be an "I know what I'm doing" option.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Seems like it's images only, accoring to the Register? Also a work becoming public domain in the UK doesn't automatically become public domain anywhere else in the world. It would still be eligible for copyright protection in the USA, for example.
Why not? Why should something I create by nature be fair game
You've actually hit the nail on the head -- there is no natural right of copyright. In fact, copyright is in direct conflict with the natural right of free speech (which encompasses the verbatim repetition of what someone else has previously said). A copyright is nothing other than a privately-held but government-enforced right to censor other people. It shouldn't be granted lightly, and should be granted only when, and to the degree that, it produces some benefit for the public that outweighs the harm that it necessarily causes. (Ideally, only when the benefit is greatest and the harm is least)
Yes, I do. I would have to for everything I write - and that sucks big time.
Well, it would be your choice of course, but I find it unlikely you'd bother.
First of all, I'm not in the US, so it'd have to be some institution local to me. Now, copyright is international (this in great contrast to patents, btw). It would suddenly become local - I would register in Hong Kong (where I live and where my creations are made nowadays). Or should I have to register in every single country I want my work protected?
Copyrights are not, currently, international. There's just a lot of reciprocity. It's one of the things that needs to be dismantled in time. I'm really only interested in what the US does, but what we ought to do is to withdraw from the various copyright treaties and instead offer national treatment to the world, unilaterally. So if you want a US copyright, you wouldn't be discriminated against merely because of your nationality, residence, etc. (unlike the old days, when we didn't grant copyrights to foreigners) but you would have to do the same filings that our copyright applicants do. Between providing the forms in a wide variety of languages, accepting payments in foreign currencies, local support through our embassies and consulates, and the Internet, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Also if you would require someone to check "the registry" to see if a work is copyrighted or not, they'd have to check all registries in all countries, one by one.
No, only in the jurisdictions where they wanted to act. Just as most businesses don't bother getting patents in every country in the world (because they know that the amount of business they do in Burkina Faso, or Disputed Zone is too little to justify it), authors who don't bother getting a copyright in the US (or other places that adopt a similar policy) are allowing the work to enter the public domain there. So if you print books, you really only need to check your country's registry, and maybe only others if you ship abroad.
And while matching text is relatively easy, matching images is getting harder and matching video or music is even worse.
That's the notice formality. As with patents, copies should bear a visible notice somewhere indicating at least the year the term began and the rights holder's name. If an application or registration number has issued, that should be present too, if the rights holder wants to keep his rights.
Many of the stories mentioned above I published anonymously, and I like it that way. Yet anonymous doesn't mean no copyright
Why not? If you're truly anonymous, and not merely using a psudeonym, how would you have filed? Land can't be owned anonymously, nor licensed vehicles, nor patents, nor registered trademarks. That's just the nature of the beast. You'll have to decide whether your secrecy outweighs your desire for a copyright.
Photos that I post online, or stories that I post online, source code that I've published on github and sourceforge, even though I don't expect any economic benefit, I like to have copyright protection for
Oh, I'm sure. It's because there's no downside for you, so you can mooch off of the public
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
While this is undoubtedly bad for author/artist/etc rights I see the far greater attack being on anonymous speech. There are many, many really good reasons why someone would speak anonymously through a variety of mediums.
Consider a woman who writes satirical prose on female rights from Saudi Arabia, a citizen attempting to bring down a despotic government, a person who happens to photograph a powerful person doing something they shouldn't or a three letter agency involved in arguably treasonous activities, or simply a person who would be fired if their boss found out about the views they were expressing; should they lose the right to control their work to a commercial free-for-all simply because it wasn't prudent for them to identify themselves as the creators of their work at the time?
Why not? Why should something I create by nature be fair game
You've actually hit the nail on the head -- there is no natural right of copyright.
There are plenty of rights we enjoy that are not "natural" rights.
Copyrights are not, currently, international.
Under the Berne convention, copyright IS international. As soon as a work is published in any of the signatory countries, which includes the US. And the few countries that did not sign the treaty don't matter much from an economic point of view.
There are plenty of rights we enjoy that are not "natural" rights.
That's true, but there may be various strings attached when it comes to those. Today, if you want to drive a car, you have a right to, provided you can get a license, the car passes inspection, etc. If you want to open a restaurant, you have a right to, but you'll have to comply with applicable health and food safety regulations, you'll need a business license, you'll have to deal with the tax issues that arise, and so on. If you want to become a doctor or a lawyer, you have a right to, but you'll need to meet certain educational prerequisites, pass exams, pay dues periodically to licensing boards, and that sort of thing. If you invent some invention, you have a right to a patent, but you'll have to fill out an application and pay a few, and you may have to engage in some correspondence with the patent office in the process.
So there's nothing at all unusual about copyright formalities, or predicting grants of copyright on whether or not, and if so, how we'll, copyright serves the public. Bad drivers and uneducated doctors and filthy restaurants are bad for the public, so we try to cut down on those things. Some amount of copyright might be good for the public, but too much would be bad, and so we'll want to tailor it carefully to serve the public interest.
Under the Berne convention, copyright IS international
No, Berne isn't self executing. It merely obligates the member states to pass copyright legislation which complies with Berne's minimum standards. If you came to the US and tried to sue someone under Berne itself, you'd get thrown out of court. Copyright is national, and varies from nation to nation even despite Berne. Don't mistake national treatment and minimum standards for actual international laws.
And the few countries that did not sign the treaty don't matter much from an economic point of view.
The US didn't join until twenty odd years ago. We don't actually comply with Berne. And we can withdraw from it any time we like. Which we ought to do immediately. I've got nothing against national treatment, but I'm adamantly against minimum standards for copyright.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
a) find image you want to use at site X
b) have someone strip the the image of identifying information and repost it at site Y
c) discover image at site Y lacking traceable information
d) do "due dilligence" based on image from site Y
e) declare image from site Y as 'orphaned'
f) PROFIT
I was starting to think of steganographic information, but even that won't help, since a simple re-compression or imagetype conversion will blow that away, too.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
This could be a good thing. By acknowledging the impotence of current copyright law and the futility of current ideas about intellectual property, this could represent a much-needed shift in the way we deal with public domain and copyright. One day, everybody will realise that their most precious commodity is an idea, and that it's an ethical dilemma to make a profit from an idea that could bring happiness to people or even save someone's life.
Any photos in *your* Instagram feed, Flickr library, etc are not orphaned under the terms of this act as they are explicitly associated with a user account and, in the case of Flickr have one or more of several licenses already attached to them. The article is the usual Register FUD.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
The best part is now the infringer has an excuse (and a way out that costs them nothing if the judge agrees).
"They /did/ search diligently, and therefore the work is in the public domain, even though the court now concedes you are the copyright holder; the law says they don't owe you anything because you were too hard to find at the time."
I wonder how long it will take for this to be extended to even more valuable 3D files such as .stl files
maybe fine for RMS. not fine for the GPL, because without "copyrights," the GPL doesn't exist. Nobody can stop you from making a copy of their source code, but you can't *force anybody to share their source code with you,* either. And if you hack into someone's systems to get at their source code, you'd probably still run afoul of trespass laws.
Yeah, you got me. Because my point about how this is a logical consequence of all the leeching freetards' rhetoric clearly identifies me as someone who wants to take anything I want, whenever I want.
In FACT, I am a proponent of copyrights: I think if you want a copy of something, you owe it to the person who created that copy to reach a consensual agreement with them about the terms of them giving you a copy, and then you being an honorable person and abiding by those terms - or refusing the terms and doing without the copy of the work if the terms are objectionable to you.
it IS hypocrisy. Because the GPL purports to be about freedom, and then states a clear goal of making everybody abide by those licensing terms for all software. In other words "We're going to enslave people and FORCE them to be free!" The companies affected by this bill are simply applying the lessons they've learned from the freetards: "if it's not bolted down, it's mine if I want it. I'm not harming anybody by taking a copy, the person who posted the original copy still has theirs!"