There Is No "Next Great Copyright Act", Remain Calm

Lirodon writes: A YouTube video has gone viral, particularly around the art community (and the subsection of the art community populated by the same type of people who tend to spread these around to begin with), making bold claims that a revision to U.S. copyright law is being considered, with a particular focus on orphan works. Among other things, this video claims that it would require all works to be registered with a for-profit registry to be protected, that unregistered works would be "orphaned" and be usable by "good faith infringers" and allow others to make derivative works that they would own entirely. Thankfully, this is all just hyperbole proliferated by a misinterpretation of a report on orphan works by the U.S. Copyright Office, as Graphic Policy explains.

Comments

Re:that's a shame

[ScentCone]

If you don't register a work you can never receive monetary damages from infringers, only an injunction.

No. If you don't have the work registered, you can only go for the injunction, and for your customary rates/invoicing on the work in question. What having the work registered does is allow you to take the infringement case to federal court, and to seek punitive damages.

But there is a "Next Great Copyright Act"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Extends the copyright term to 120 years, eliminates fair use as a copyright infringement defense, and institutes extrajudicial legal proceedings that allow copyright holders to seize your property if it is being used to "infringe."

Are we reading the same US code?

[Xenographic]

No, if you haven't registered the work, you're only able to get actual damages (which is something like your 'customary rates' but it depends on what you can prove) rather than statutory damages and attorney's fees. Actual damages are close to what you said, but statutory damages are not "punitive" damages at all.

But don't take my word for it, read the actual law on the subject.

Oh, and it so happens that you can register just before filing suit, but a registration that isn't timely doesn't have the same presumption of validity that it would if you were registering long before there was a lawsuit close on the horizon.

Re:The next great copyright scam

[davester666]

Some francise-oriented work goes on for 14 years. Not a lot.

And they aren't going "well, this first one bombed, but we'll go ahead with the other 6 anyway".

The first one makes a jillion, then they go ahead with #2. And sometimes, if #1 is a really huge hit, they'll go ahead and film #2 & #3 at the same time, particularly to make the movies cheaper and retain the characters at the same age. If #1 bombs, the rest don't ever see the light of day.

The VAST majority of the money received for 99.99% of all movies are received in the first couple of years after the movie is released.

Past that, for movies, music and books, it's a lottery ticket. Every once in awhile, it winds up being popular for longer than that, or it comes back into vogue. Basically a fluke.

Nobody OK's a movie based on the financial returns of a 90 year copyright term. They go ahead if it projects to making a good profit inside a couple of years. After that, it's straightup gravy.