Hi everyone.
There is a bill that is going through congress that will virtually eliminate an artist’s right to copyright protection for fine art or commercial art. If it passes just about anyone will be able to use any image they find online or elsewhere and claim that they were unable to find out who created it even if it was copyrighted.
It will be the responsibility of the artist whose work is infringed upon to fight for suit even if they have had the work copyrighted.
The bill is called the Orphan Art Bill and it passed the house today and will go on to the senate. As you may know by now, the House IP Subcommittee unanimously approved H.R. 5889 yesterday, and it has moved to the House Judiciary Committee.
Today S. 2913 is in markup in the Senate IP Subcommittee.
We have established House & Senate Judiciary IP Committee alerts on the
Capwiz site for action now.
Urge EVERYONE to write again today. It is automatically configured: If your
Senator or Representative is a member of the Judiciary Committees, the
message automatically goes to that member. If you are not a constituent of a
Senator or House Judiciary Committee Member a different request goes to your
representatives, urging them to contact their colleagues on the Judiciary
Committees on your behalf.
So everyone writes. You do not need to identify your members by district.
Spread the word.
The capwiz effort is working. As of this moment, 19,401 messages have been
sent. 1,990 have been sent today, since midnight. The rate seems to be
accelerating. Let's ramp it up. Please get the message out to your members,
to our international colleagues, on blogs, etc. Through every channel you
can think of. Always ask them to pass it on.
This link <http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/> will allow you
to be heard.
More links and info, provided by the Illustrators Partnership, are included
below.
It is vitally important to be heard. It is your future.
Thanks all,
Eric
Eric Ligon, Program Coordinator for Communication Design
Associate Professor
College of Visual Arts and Design
University of North Texas
PO Box 305100
Denton, TX 76203
