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Thanks to ninjaasuka most recent journal post on dA, I found quite the interesting article on a new bill that's passing through congress, one that would legalize art theft! Its a bill called the Orphan Works legislation, and its basically saying that you'll need to register all of your creative works at high prices multiple times in order to prevent your art from being stolen. On top of that, if you don't copyright your own art, some art theif has the right to copyright it themselves, making you using your own artwork illegal.

I'm not much of an artist, my skills are improving, but I doubt anyone out there is in a hurry to steal my drawings. However, I know quite a few very skilled artists on dA, and I've seen their art stolen before. If this bill passes, then when their art is stolen, it can be labeled an "orphan work" and they won't be able to do a thing about their work being stolen, unless they have copyrights from every office they need it from. That could mean spending thousands of dollars just to protect one piece of work, just to be sure that one work doesn't get stolen. Now imagine having hundreds of works and having to register all of them three or four times! You'd be living in a cardboard box before long.

Another reason this really concerns me is that, even if my art isn't the best, I have confidence that my writing is kind of on the higher end of medium quality, making its way into high quality, and I intend to make my living off of my writing one day. If I have to go and copy right every page in every book I ever make, I'll spend more protecting my work than I'll make off said work. Writing is protected under creative licenses too, and people steal stories and poems just as often as they steal art. I am not going to sit around and let my stories and my poems be used by other people who can't create anything, just so they can get some money that they didn't earn.

Artists make so much beautiful artwork that's getting stolen all the time, but at least at the moment we have the right to fight it. This bill will deprive us of our right to make money off our own art, and anything we post on any art site without a license will end up being free game for big companies. You guys don't want that, I don't want that, so we need to fight against this. Don't leave it up to anyone else, and if you're living in the U.S. stand up and protect the art you work hard to make, before protecting it means selling your house to pay for it.

And just imagine all the artists here who don't live in the U.S! Their work could be stolen and sold and they'd be none the wiser to it, and even worse, they <i>really</i> wouldn't have the chance to defend themselves. I know plenty of wonderful artists who don't live in this country, and if this bill passes, I'll be seeing their work left and right, knowing that they aren't getting proper compensation for it. You probably know someone who lives outside this horrific country, wouldn't it make you ill to see your friend's wonderful, hard work stolen like that? This isn't a topic thats covered in the article I read, but I think its a big part of the issue.

Artists make and break our culture. If art theft was legalized, soon enough artists would stop making art, or they'd stop sharing it and our culture would become black and white and disgusting, because theives would have more rights than honest people. I know I'd rather burn everything I ever made than let someone steal it and call it their own. Do you realize how many people would join me in making an art bonfire if theft was legalized? No artist wants to see thier work used and not get any credit for it, no artist wants to have to give up thier art either, but both will happen if this bill passes.

for a better, more detailed over-view of this matter, please look here: ]http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&column=MindBiz&article_no=3605

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