[Upd-discuss] Illustrators concerned about Orphan Works legislation

[Andrius Kulikauskas]

Thank you to Kerry Santo and her social networking site 
http://www.scarybirds.com for alerting us 
http://www.scarybirds.com/node/635 to an article by Mark Simon 
http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html  and an interview on 
April 5, 2008 with artist Brad Holland who is concerned that "orphan art 
works" legislation in the US will allow use of works without 
compensating artists. See also the Orphan Works Resource Page 
http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00185

Mark and Brad, our Minciu Sodas laboratory participates in the European 
Union thematic network COMMUNIA for the Public Domain 
http://www.communia-project.eu  COMMUNIA is the forum in the European 
Union for pulling together and proposing best practice for legislation 
for orphan works and other such issues.  We recently organized a 
workshop of debates: Ethical Public Domain: Debate of Questionable 
Practices and we are continuing online at 
http://www.ethicalpublicdomain.org and looking forward to organizing 
more such events.  I invite you and all to join us.  Thank you also to 
alerting us to Peter Jaszi.

I personally think that the overzealous protection of copyright has 
created a situation where there is no sensible protection except for 
corporate interests which are incapable of creating or sharing creative 
work but are simply able to fight over it.  We lack a system that would 
support makers of creative works.  We could create a new system which 
encourages the sharing of creative work in the Public Domain, brings 
attention to those who helped create and inspire it, and organizes 
payment and resources (perhaps through a tax on corporations and also 
finder's fees for those who find instances of reuse)  so they might do 
more such work.  Why would that be a worse system then the current "free 
market"? which mistreats even the 1% of artists who do manage to make a 
living from their work?   As we debate the subtleties I think that we 
can come up with novel solutions that encourage creative work and make 
for a robust Public Domain.

Andrius

Andrius Kulikauskas
Minciu Sodas
ms@ms.lt
http://www.ms.lt
+370 699 30003
Vilnius, Lithuania