Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
So does this go both ways... can individuals claim orphaned corporate content or do the corporates have YET ANOTHER special right?
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!
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.
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?
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.
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!
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/
It doesn't make any sense because The Register is full of shit as usual. This isn't a free for all. This is enabling legislation for one or more future (or present) licensing bodies to search for owners of apparent "orphan works" - works that at the moment cannot be used by anyone - and issue licenses.
There's pros and cons to that. With the biggest question, does the licensing body charge for licenses, and if so who gets the money.
What this is not is a law that will make it legal for any person, company or corporation to decide themselves that a work is an orphan, and so do what they want with it.
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.
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 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?
Actually, in this case you can. Because in the majority of places (including, afaik, the UK), there are things called artist rights. Your image can't be used to sell or promote something without your permission. (Make sure to never sign a model release allowing the photographer to use the image for any purpose.)
Well, when I say you can stop it, you can't. But after the fact you can spend loads of money to sue the corporation (and in the UK, if you win, you might even get all that money back!).
HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2013/april/copyright-law-reforms-in-pipeline-after-royal-assent-given-to-enterprise-and-regulatory-reform-bill/
"Under the Government's plans, organisations that wish to use orphan works would have to conduct a 'diligent search' for the owner of orphan works before they could use the material. The searches would have to be verified as diligent by independent authorising bodies. In addition, organisations would have to pay a "market rate" to use orphan works so as rights holders could be recompensed for the use of the works if they were later identified."
They're making YOUR content usable by corporations. What they are NOT doing is applying the same standard to works of corporations that no longer want your money so that Google Books et. al. can serve them up to the masses. Not surprising at all, really.
Wouldn't it be awesome if as soon as the original rights holder stopped offering a work for convenient sale, it entered the public domain? Sure, there are a zillion loopholes in that idea, but still...
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."
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
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 your honour, we did a diligent search first. We used /bin/false, and found no results!"
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.
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'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.
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?
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.
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.
The only reason the minor parties are not corrupt is that nobody thinks it worth bribing them ... if they ever did get in power they'd be just as bad
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.
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.