Ever feel used??

[earthdragon64]

Originally Posted by pressld2

That's my interpretation too earthdragon, and it seems to be the interpretation of Copyright Action too. They said:

"There is a very real and legitimate case for some means of allowing the use of orphan works. That case has been pressed by museums, galleries, universities, all of whom have collections that include work of unknown ownership that they dare not use, because under current law that would be infringement.

But that problem is very easy to solve. Fair dealing exceptions in the 1988 CDP&A allow copies to me made for the purposes of research and private study, for comment and review etc. It is not beyond the wit of man to devise exceptions that allow non-profit cultural use of works where the rights holder cannot be traced. Few would argue with this."

Their main concern seems to be that the bill as currently worded does not exclude commercial use and does not outlaw the orphaning of works online to start with.

Dave P.

To me there are two types of orphan, and each type should be treated differently. There's the one that we agree the bill seems to be aiming for, which is fine, then there is the orphan which has been maliciously or deliberately created to deny rights owners their rights. Outlawing the creation of the 2nd type of orphan would be an obvious and simple way of differentiating the two.

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by earthdragon64

I would have to ask you how a 12-year-old in Mongolia would obtain a license from the Government to hold a register of orphan works in the first place. Much as I dislike the British media in general, and agree they will probably go down the cheapest route possible, orphan works will only be legitimately available on a "Regulated and licensed" basis, see near the bottom of the 2nd link in Mike's post just before your post.

So in your scenario, you would still be able to sue the newspaper because they haven't obtained the image from a properly licensed and regulated source. I can't see newspapers risking litigation in this way.

That's not my reading of it earthdragon. It seems to me that they can obtain images from anywhere and if, after a reasonable search, they cannot identify the copyright owner then they need to purchase a licence from "an authorised licensing body". The price of that licence will be decided by the authorised licensing body and when I discover that my image has been used I can claim a portion of the fee that was paid.

Dave P.

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by earthdragon64

To me there are two types of orphan, and each type should be treated differently. There's the one that we agree the bill seems to be aiming for, which is fine, then there is the orphan which has been maliciously or deliberately created to deny rights owners their rights. Outlawing the creation of the 2nd type of orphan would be an obvious and simple way of differentiating the two.

I think there's a third type. Our hypothetical 12-year-old Mongolian did not orphan my image deliberately or maliciously in order to deny me my rights. Nor did the Porstmouth news when they published my photos without attribution. But the effect is the same. I think the fairest way is to exclude any commercial exploitation of orphaned works.

Dave P.

[earthdragon64]

Originally Posted by pressld2

That's not my reading of it earthdragon. It seems to me that they can obtain images from anywhere and if, after a reasonable search, they cannot identify the copyright owner then they need to purchase a licence from "an authorised licensing body". The price of that licence will be decided by the authorised licensing body and when I discover that my image has been used I can claim a portion of the fee that was paid.

Dave P.

I see where you're coming from with that one, I think that's a point that could be interpreted either way.

However, I've just re-read Mike's 3rd link, take a look at the final paragraph. I can't copy and paste it, but that seems to be saying that no license would be available for online orphans.

"According to the Government orgaanisation the Digital Economy Bill would not allow publishers to gain a license for orphan images it had found online" and the couple of sentences after that, are the relevant parts.

[pressld2]

Originally Posted by earthdragon64

"According to the Government orgaanisation the Digital Economy Bill would not allow publishers to gain a license for orphan images it had found online" and the couple of sentences after that, are the relevant parts.

Yep, I copied that bit in my post 79 above (they've disabled the ability to copy and paste text so you have to view the web page source to copy it ). It sounds promising but can you see anywhere in the bill that it says online images are excluded? I can't. And this is the Digital Economy Bill - it's hard to imagine where anyone is going to find orphaned digital images other than online.

Dave P.

[earthdragon64]

Originally Posted by pressld2

Yep, I copied that bit in my post 79 above (they've disabled the ability to copy and paste text so you have to view the web page source to copy it ). It sounds promising but can you see anywhere in the bill that it says online images are excluded? I can't. And this is the Digital Economy Bill - it's hard to imagine where anyone is going to find orphaned digital images other than online.

Dave P.

It's all going to be down to interpretation and possibly case law, just like a lot of other things. With future ammendements when it doesn't do what the government want or expect.

The orphans and copyright is only a very small part of the bill as a whole. The Digital part probably refers to the C4C or digital broadcast parts, which make up a far larger part of it.

I've no idea what the Economy bit refers to though. Maybe because it's full of seemingly unrelated parts of legislation it would have been too expensive to deal with seperately?

Regards, Audrey.

[acherontia]

It's good that this has resulted in an open debate. It's good to know that we can dissect and look for ulterior motives - if (and probably) they exist.
The one thing I got from this is that people are not the fools that the government think we are.

The government rely on us all being too busy to read in detail the actual bill - they rely on us to have too much on our plates to disagree with this and spend the effort to make a written (always the best way) objection.

This is how these bills get fast tracked. It is not an invention of New Labour It is merely an extention of the powers that be.

Lancashire Lad is right when he says that (Apologies for my Interpretation) 'Any lack of objection and effort to express one's opinion is a disastrous failing on the behalf of mankind '. He is right when he says that the world would be very different should we have all taken the attititude that we should say 'nowt' !!
" Evil prospers while good men do nothing' may be to bend a quotation and use a tad of hyperbole. It's true though.
I have put my objections in writing - as has LL has. How many others have taken the time?
It's as much as I can do and I hope that a few others may feel moved that they are not as powerless as they may feel they are when they feel the urge to defend an aspect of human existence?

Acher


Acher

[paulthomas]

Originally Posted by acherontia

Your thoughts on this please?

How about you go away and read and understand the actual Bill ( link ) instead of posting a link to what to me looks like a troll/misinformation site? Or do you want to live your life as the puppet of every internet scammer out there? (no skin off my nose if you do )

A few general points to anybody who's concerned about this

1) Read the actual bill. Modern legislation is intelligible to lay people.

2) If you have issues the write to your MP. This bill was introduced in The Lords so the Commons haven't seen it yet. But I strongly advise that you study and understand the bill itself first and not rely things posted on some scam/misinformation site.

3) For many bills there is also the opportunity at the Commons Committee stage to submit your views in writing. Guidance can be found here.

[Lancashire Lad]

The three British Journal of Photographers links I posted earlier, were in the order that I found them, and, as you may have noticed, were in date order as published.

The first was published on 20th January.
The second on 9th February.
The third on 19th February.

I've just found another that was published prior to these, (on 23rd December 2009): -
British Journal of Photography - Copyrights and wrongs

This little snippet, quoted from the "crumbling copyright" section of that BJP publication, shows the extent of what is currently going on - by professional bodies. (NB: I added the bold highlighting).

"the internet has made it simpler to copy photographs than it ever was in the past. 'The rise of the internet has played a major role in convincing people that not only should content be free, but that content is free. More work is now published by people who have no concept of copyright.'

And the people doing so are not the stereotypical young hackers or social-media junkies. In a recent survey, Polylooks, Deutsche Telekom's online photo agency, found that more than a third of UK marketing, PR and publishing professionals had used images illegally. Worse, 44% believed that 'royalty free' meant that they could use the image without paying for it."

If more than a third of these professional organisations are stealing images now, this legislation will only serve to make things much worse.

Regards,
Mike.

[Lancashire Lad]

Originally Posted by paulthomas

How about you go away and read and understand the actual Bill...

I would strongly suggest that before making such a ridiculous comment at this stage in the thread, you might have actually taken the trouble to read the posts within the thread.

You might then see that reading the Bill is precisely what we have been doing.