15 replies to this topic

[leahnkain]

You have to love the US. Follow this Link
I know I would be pretty pissed if someone takes a CA pictures and claims it to be their own. I am sure artist like Ilmatar would be pretty ticked. I wonder what is everyone elses opinion.

Edited by leahnkain, 21 April 2008 - 01:50 AM.

[Jazhara7]

Oh gods, this is awful!

I am partly happy to be outside the US, as *proper* copyright law (Or rather: "Urheberrecht". "Urheber" basically means "Creator", so the law is called "Creator's Right". It it is considered an "Absolute Right", meaning that it can't even be transferred to another person - the only way another person can get someone elses's Urheberrecht on a creation, is by inheriting it. So usually the descendants get the rights for the work, unless the person specified that someone else inherits it in his will. When a person allows another one to use their creations, it is just that: A right to use them. They still do not have the Copyright. They are just allowed to use it, and that right can be taken away by the Creator of the work at any time, too, as far as I know.) still applies here in Germany (our politicians talk a lot before deciding anything. It can be annoying, but at least they make decisions while keeping in mind what happened in our country's history, as they don't want to have that kind of thing repeat, of course.) However, I am afraid on the Internet anyone wanting to steal my work won't care about it, especially if they're in the US (no offense against all Americans, but I've found that many Americans are rather blind as to what happens out in the world. Not all of them, of course. Many people I know here are more worldly, I know. But I'm afraid the type of person that might steal my artwork when I post it on the Internet is probably not the type that wonders "Hey, this might fall under the legislation of another country", or even care that by the laws of the country where I live and work *I* hold the copyright, if I told them it was that way.).



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Edited by Jazhara7, 21 April 2008 - 01:41 AM.

[Kaeloree]

Before you read anything further on this topic, I suggest you check out THIS POST HERE by Ursula Vernon, a very well-known artist on the internet.

There is no such bill about to be passed in Congress.

For a more detailed read, check this post. For information from an official source, check here (a long read; the important part is in "The Proposed Solution.")

Don't believe everything you read!

[Jazhara7]

Before you read anything further on this topic, I suggest you check out THIS POST HERE by Ursula Vernon, a very well-known artist on the internet.

There is no such bill about to be passed in Congress.

For a more detailed read, check this post. For information from an official source, check here (a long read; the important part is in "The Proposed Solution."

Don't believe everything you read!

You might not realise it, but linking to a post by Ursula Vernon was the absolutely correct action to calm me down. I'm a big fan of her.



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Edited by Jazhara7, 21 April 2008 - 01:46 AM.

[leahnkain]

I really don't get myself....I mean if the US tried to pass this bill what about international artists? I have read this in the Japan Times recently. Many manga artist in Japan are worried about rumors of this bill. So I know at least it has been discussed by the artist community in Japan. I agree you can't believe everything you read, but as you know the US can be a strange place at times.(I am not taking a shot at the US, I am just confused about the country and how it imposes it rules on the world.)

Edited by leahnkain, 21 April 2008 - 01:48 AM.

[SConrad]

There is no such bill about to be passed in Congress.

I read the blog entry linked to in the first post, and was thinking "wait a second... there's no way such a bill would even reach the floor?" Apparently, I was right. A lot of insane and/or stupid bills are introduced to the US Congress every year; very few of them even gets voted on.

And no, any bill passed in the US would only apply to the US; not internationally. Artists outside the US wouldn't technically be affected by such a law if it ever came to pass. However, since the internet overlaps quite a bit, it's easier said than done. If Ilmatar (who is from Finland) posts her art on SHS (which is on an American server) and K'aeloree (from Australia) decides to steal her art, then we have a problem even with current legislation. Who sues whom in which country? Who pays for it, and how?

In reality, the artists aren't that protected as it is to begin with.

[Jazhara7]

Here's what one person on that article commented, and if they're right, it really is panicking over nothing:

The orphan works is designed for archives, libraries , museums, special collections and others who have over the years become repositories of materials that were donated without a proper deed of gift. As it stands now because no one knows who owns the copyright these materials are effectively close to researchers. The orphan works act is NOT designed to take away someone's copyright

Can someone confirm that?


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[jcompton]

Here's a handy dandy checklist for Things To Do Before (Writing Your Congressman/Telling Your American Friends To Write Their Congressman/Throwing a Fit) Over An Allegedly Pending US Law.

#1. Does the allegation include a House or Senate bill or resolution number and the name of a sponsor?
If YES, goto Step 2.
If NO, Ignore the matter.

#2. Does the alleged representative or senator sponsoring the bill exist? That is, can you locate their bio on www.house.gov or www.senate.gov?
If YES, goto Step 3
If NO, Ignore the matter.

#3. Does the alleged bill or resolution exist? That is, can you locate it on thomas.loc.gov?
If YES, goto Step 4
If NO, Ignore the matter.

#4. Does the alleged bill or resolution text actually say anything remotely like what the initial alarm says it does?
If YES, start to think about taking your optimistic corrective action
If NO, Ignore the matter.

.
.
.

Optional step for realists
#x. May as well ignore the matter anyway, because they don't particularly care what you think. Sorry.

[Azkyroth]

One of the things you have to get used to in the US (I'm not sure how it is elsewhere) is the number of people who unapologetically lie about the content and impact of laws in order to panic stupid, gullible people (our single largest demographic) and get them to vote in ways that advance the liars agendas whether or not said agendas are beneficial to those panicked. This behavior is absolutely rampant among "conservatives" (read "tinfoil-hat right wing extremists with a bizarrely large following, no relation to the 'Conservative' parties in other developed countries"), but some left leaning organizations are prone to it as well (ideological purists ranting that cap-and-trade schemes "allow" businesses to pay to pollute come to mind). This is possible because a large fraction of the citizenry are absolutely pig-ignorant and wholly unfamiliar with the concept of making decisions on any basis other than emotional knee-jerk reactions and abject wishful thinking, and rather than seeing this as an obstacle to participation in democracy or other aspects of grown-up society, many of them are actually proud of it and even those who aren't demand to be given the same respect as those who make rational decisions.

That said, what exactly is it that this law is being claimed to do that many to most modern American syndication and publishing contracts don't?

Building on what SConrad said, regardless of what the law says, we've made the potentially fatal mistake of constructing a legal system where it's often financially infeasible for most people to defend the rights and entitlements they do have, and often impossible to defend them against encroaches by corporations or other entities with deep pockets unless one is independently wealthy. Even having legal protections doesn't help much if you can't effectively enforce them. The fact that people are paying more attention to scare stories like the linked post, than to genuine problems, is responsible for a lot of what's wrong with America today. ("Bread and Circuses" are about 3/4 of the rest.)

(Incidentally, Jazhara, the idea of inalienable rights of artistic creators existing, and copyright law being intended to protect them (as opposed to being a purely pragmatic incentive to encourage production of inventions and works by guaranteeing their creators the chance to profit from them) is, as I understand it, relatively new to US jurisprudence, certain self-interested groups' attempts to retcon legal history notwithstanding, and as far as I'm aware the same is true elsewhere. This is an argument for drawing a distinction between "copyright" and the "creators' rights" you endorse.)

Edited by Azkyroth, 21 April 2008 - 10:35 AM.

[SConrad]

Can someone confirm that?

I can deny that, since there is no such law.

In any case, I believe the American legislative system is pretty flawed. For being the first shot anyone's ever had at constructing one, though, I think the founders did a pretty good job. But we learn with experience, and knowing what we know today, I think the design of a new one would look slightly different.

[Sammi Somara]

Yeah, this freaked me out at first too. Then I did some reading.

[Wounded_Lion]

Why do so many people despise Americans in particular? People have been greedy, jealous, and violent since the dawn of recorded history. It is not unique to America. Do you have any idea how twisted Europe's torrid history is? Americans don't suck. People suck.

Btw, I completely agree that American law and society are flawed (I could rant and rave for hours about things that piss me off here, but I'll save you the grief). But I doubt that things are much better anywhere else.

aWL

[theacefes]

Why do so many people despise Americans in particular? People have been greedy, jealous, and violent since the dawn of recorded history. It is not unique to America. Do you have any idea how twisted Europe's torrid history is? Americans don't suck. People suck.

Btw, I completely agree that American law and society are flawed (I could rant and rave for hours about things that piss me off here, but I'll save you the grief). But I doubt that things are much better anywhere else.

aWL

I've been to a few other countries and in every time I've gone, I've ALWAYS been treated extremely well by the people there, and they knew I was American. So I guess I'm lucky I haven't met these American haters (hatas..yo)

The only thing about America I think is flawed is its idea of "civil rights". I think that compared to the rest of the world, we still have a long way to go, no matter how fancy our technology gets.

Then again, I doze off in American history. It's so boring when compared to the history of Europe.

Edited by theacefes, 22 April 2008 - 09:08 AM.

[Orthodoxia]

Why do so many people despise Americans in particular? People have been greedy, jealous, and violent since the dawn of recorded history. It is not unique to America. Do you have any idea how twisted Europe's torrid history is? Americans don't suck. People suck.

Btw, I completely agree that American law and society are flawed (I could rant and rave for hours about things that piss me off here, but I'll save you the grief). But I doubt that things are much better anywhere else.

aWL

Don't ask questions you really don't want to hear answer to. Some people have good reason to hate America and others don't. Let's leave it at that, otherwise horrid rants might ensue.

[Jazhara7]

Why do so many people despise Americans in particular? People have been greedy, jealous, and violent since the dawn of recorded history. It is not unique to America. Do you have any idea how twisted Europe's torrid history is? Americans don't suck. People suck.

Btw, I completely agree that American law and society are flawed (I could rant and rave for hours about things that piss me off here, but I'll save you the grief). But I doubt that things are much better anywhere else.

aWL

Where did someone say they hated Americans...?


Personally, I don't hate anyone, I just dislike certain people. In the case of Americans, that's all the extreme people that are either too stupid there's something outside their country/they are not always right/think that they're better than others, yet don't notice what a fool they make of themselves. Those people are mostly those that get media coverage, not only in the US. I know that there's more than enough "normal" people in the US, who themselves shake their heads at some of the antics of their fellow citizens.

But really, every country has stupids that get in the news and think it's great, while not realising that *it is not*. It's just that from the amount of those you see on TV, one gets the impression that America has an over proportionate number of those stupids. But trust me, I shake my head at my fellow citizens here in Germany just as much when they don't realise their stupidity on the media - sadly, I've seen the amount of those increase quite a bit in recent years, as people put more trust in TV and the media than is healthy. Only yesterday I told my sister's boyfriend that he should take everything he hears on the news with a grain of salt. Even on very down-to-earth news programmes (like the one by the ZDF and ARD, which are similar to the BBC, and have been around since shortly after the war), there can be mistakes. Though usually the problem is with private channels, that are aimed at making money, and thus have a relatively "Dumbed down" programme, and "News". You can recognise those by the increased number of celebrity news, as opposed to general world matters (which are also featured, but often they are not as elaborate). Too many people take everything they hear as truth, because "The media said it". I had to calm down my sister's boyfriend about the danger of tropical diseases in Germany, due to the Tiger mosquito having been discovered here recently. Most channels only said the mosquito is here, but they didn't even bother to check if it's even carrying the virus. A bit of research by me revealed that no, they are not carrying it yet, since to carry it they first have to pick it up from an infected person. Same goes with Malaria, transferred by various types of Anopheles Mosquito - a family of mosquitos that can be found all over the world as native species, even in Sibiria. While there's always the potential for them to pick up the virus, Malaria has been eradicated in Germany for 50 years at least, so it's very unlikely we'll have an epidemic of Malaria any time soon - yet my sister's boyfriend didn't even realise that Malaria was transmitted by a different type of mosquito than Chikungunya or Dengue-Fever. He just heard "Tropical diseases and Mosquitos", and didn't even bother to check the details, since TV delivered it to him in easily digestible bits. *slaps forehead*

It's stupidity like that, that I dislike, or rather makes me shake my head in pity.

(And yes, I realise I am not infallible either. As was proven by my first post in this thread, sometimes I forget to check the sources first, myself. But hey, I'm only human too.)


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[Kaeloree]

Off-topic, people--back to the topic, please.