Author Topic: Worrying legislation for UK microstockers. (Read 6494 times)

lightsatnight · « **on:** March 01, 2010, 18:40 »

Have a read - Verry worrying. This 'digital economy' bill is expected to pass into law in 6 weeks.
http://www.copyrightaction.com/forum/uk-gov-nationalises-orphans-and-bans-non-consensual-photography-in-public? [nofollow]

Edit: another article http://www.photoactive.co.uk/archives/7061 [nofollow]

Digital66 · « **Reply #1 on:** March 01, 2010, 18:57 »

It's worrying for all microstockers.

PeterChigmaroff · « **Reply #2 on:** March 01, 2010, 19:07 »

Not too sure what makes microstockers unique here? Wouldn't this effect all photographers poorly?

cathyslife · « **Reply #3 on:** March 01, 2010, 19:09 »

Wow. This is definitely bad news for all photographers.

mantonino · « **Reply #4 on:** March 01, 2010, 19:18 »

What's worrying about it? Make sure you understand it.

-------

The premise behind an “orphan works” addition to copyright law is that it would provide a means for anyone to make use of copyrighted material that no longer has an owner.

It works by limiting damages that can be claimed if the work truly falls under orphan works protection. If a person wants to use a work they must ask permission from the copyright holder just as they do now. Under the current law, if they can’t find the owner they are out of luck. With the orphan works bill in effect, they could use the work after conducting a diligent search and failing to find the copyright owner. Later, if the original owner shows up, he must be paid fair royalties for the use of the work. It does not limit or change Fair Use.

lightsatnight · « **Reply #5 on:** March 01, 2010, 20:19 »

Quote from: mantonino on March 01, 2010, 19:18

What's worrying about it? Make sure you understand it.

-------

The premise behind an “orphan works” addition to copyright law is that it would provide a means for anyone to make use of copyrighted material that no longer has an owner.

It works by limiting damages that can be claimed if the work truly falls under orphan works protection. If a person wants to use a work they must ask permission from the copyright holder just as they do now. Under the current law, if they can’t find the owner they are out of luck. With the orphan works bill in effect, they could use the work after conducting a diligent search and failing to find the copyright owner. Later, if the original owner shows up, he must be paid fair royalties for the use of the work. It does not limit or change Fair Use.

What is worrying, to me, is this specific bill not the concept of claiming orphaned works. What worries me is this
(from the article):

Quote

In fact what an "orphan work" is remains undefined in the Bill. Simlarly, what precisely will comprise an "adequate search", what level of fee will be required, how the fee will be divided between the revenant author and the collecting society, who will benefit from unclaimed fees, who the extended licensing societies will be and what rules they will have to follow, are all unspecified and unknown to supporters and opponents alike. As far as orphans and photographers are concerned, this is a deliberate shell of a bill whose real payload will not be made apparent until it is too late to do anything about it.

Peter Mandelson, in response to concerns raised by the lords select committee on the constitution, claimed that certain terms within the bill cannot be defined because they must ramain fluid, including "adequate search" and "orphaned work". This is where the contention lies with this bill, not in the issue of orphaned works itself.

macrosaur · « **Reply #6 on:** March 02, 2010, 08:02 »

it's a scam.

and they're trying to do the same in the US.

i'm curious how will the EU deal with this as in the rest of europe there's nothing about orphan works so far.

microstockphoto.co.uk · « **Reply #7 on:** March 02, 2010, 09:09 »

and the ban on non-consensual photography in public is as worrying as the orphan works issue

now if a police officer stops us in the UK while photographying, I'm not even sure whether it's better trying to explain we are photographers or just let them believe we are 'terrorists' - at least we have a choice on which charge to incur

OM · « **Reply #8 on:** March 02, 2010, 09:11 »

"The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini defined fascism as the merger of the State and the Corporation. It is that social system in which the interests of the State and the corporations merge together."

The State makes these laws at the insistence of the corporations that control it, in order to ensure that corporations, such as the owners of Facebook etc, increase their profits at the expense of everyone else and their individual rights. In this age of corporate kleptocracy, you surely didn't imagine that social networking via internet was free!

Have to wonder though; will the products produced in accordance with the new British law be legal in the rest of the EU and the US?

gostwyck · « **Reply #9 on:** March 02, 2010, 09:28 »

How is this going to affect TV crews doing a piece to camera for a news story on a local high street for example? Are they going to have to blank out the faces of all the passers-by?

What about sports events and the crowds that attend, particularly outside the stadium when the reporter seeks the view of the fans on the street?

It's yet another example of a Labour government introducing ever more laws to address issues that don't actually exist and end up having endless unintended consequences (which inevitably will be worse than whatever the previous issue might have been).

I don't understand why it apparently only applies to 'professional photographers' either. Does that mean it is ok for a hobby photographer to take said images and then upload them to Flickr where they can then be copied directly and used by others or otherwise 'found' as orphans at a later date.

lightsatnight · « **Reply #10 on:** March 02, 2010, 09:43 »

Quote from: macrosaur on March 02, 2010, 08:02

it's a scam.

and they're trying to do the same in the US.

i'm curious how will the EU deal with this as in the rest of europe there's nothing about orphan works so far.

Yeah, very similar legislation was proposed in the US back in 2008 (The Orphan Works Act of 2008) that contained equally evasive language. The bill was opposed by the National Press Photographers Association and a petition against the bill was signed by Larry Lessig of all people (read his NYT op ed here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20lessig.html?ex=1369022400&en=af6d685002b2942f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink [nofollow]) .
The bill ultimately died before the House of Representatives ever voted on it.

macrosaur · « **Reply #11 on:** March 02, 2010, 09:58 »

Quote from: OM on March 02, 2010, 09:11

"The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini defined fascism as the merger of the State and the Corporation. It is that social system in which the interests of the State and the corporations merge together."

The State makes these laws at the insistence of the corporations that control it, in order to ensure that corporations, such as the owners of Facebook etc, increase their profits at the expense of everyone else and their individual rights. In this age of corporate kleptocracy, you surely didn't imagine that social networking via internet was free!

Have to wonder though; will the products produced in accordance with the new British law be legal in the rest of the EU and the US?

sorry but it's wrong : in italy in the '20s corporations ("corporazioni") were the unions of workers, artisans, doctors, lawyers, etc

"corporationism" is the correct name for this, which has nothing to do with the modern mutli-national corporations.

all in all it has worked well for a while, it was a sort of third way between outright capitalism and socialism
and had its pros and cons, photographers for instance belonged to their "union" setting up minimum prices, pension scheme, etc

OM · « **Reply #12 on:** March 02, 2010, 10:31 »

The Labour Charter of 1927, promulgated by the Grand Council of Fascism, stated in article 7:
"The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation," then goes on to say in article 9 that: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management."

macrosaur · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2010, 10:58 »

Quote from: OM on March 02, 2010, 10:31

"State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management."

Yes, that's why all the key industries were owned by the state and i strongly agree with this politic
as in italy and in the rest of EU the privatizations of the last 3 decades have been a disaster so far.

it's also very similar to the actual chinese model, which in fact doesn't claim anymore to be socialistic
or communist but a "third way" as Fascism was.

cars for instance were made by Fiat, Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, etc , not by the state, but
the state bought Alfas for police and Lancia for the politicians, same as they do today.

trains and railways were made by the state instead as it was considered a key industry.

cthoman · « **Reply #14 on:** March 02, 2010, 11:27 »

Quote from: lightsatnight on March 02, 2010, 09:43

Yeah, very similar legislation was proposed in the US back in 2008 (The Orphan Works Act of 2008) that contained equally evasive language. The bill was opposed by the National Press Photographers Association and a petition against the bill was signed by Larry Lessig of all people (read his NYT op ed here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20lessig.html?ex=1369022400&en=af6d685002b2942f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink) .
The bill ultimately died before the House of Representatives ever voted on it.

I wondered what happened to that. I guess it got defeated.

cathyslife · « **Reply #15 on:** March 02, 2010, 11:58 »

Quote

Yeah, very similar legislation was proposed in the US back in 2008 (The Orphan Works Act of 2008) that contained equally evasive language. The bill was opposed by the National Press Photographers Association and a petition against the bill was signed by Larry Lessig of all people (read his NYT op ed here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/opinion/20lessig.html?ex=1369022400&en=af6d685002b2942f&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink) .
The bill ultimately died before the House of Representatives ever voted on it.

Yes, thanks for posting that. I searched around and couldn't find out whether the bill actually passed or not. Hopefully the same will happen in the UK.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #16 on:** March 02, 2010, 15:33 »

Much of this is only a problem if the claims and shouting were actually truth instead of someones personal campaign and shouting "WOLF".

http://photodoto.com/orphan-works-bill/

Or maybe read this viewpoint?

http://maradydd.livejournal.com/374886.html

For the record: The Senate orphan works bill passed the Senate on Friday September 26, 2008

House Version: H.R. 5889

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-5889

I don't know if either of these bills does what people are claiming or not, but the original intention wasn't to steal rights from all of us. The idea was that older "orphaned works" for historical purposes and works where an author could not be found after a diligent search, could be used. As it is now they are locked for all time, never to be seen or used again in the public eye.

lightsatnight · « **Reply #17 on:** March 02, 2010, 20:11 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on March 02, 2010, 15:33

For the record: The Senate orphan works bill passed the Senate on Friday September 26, 2008

House Version: H.R. 5889

Yes, as I read it though, the House bill never made it through?

Quote from: RacePhoto on March 02, 2010, 15:33

I don't know if either of these bills does what people are claiming or not, but the original intention wasn't to steal rights from all of us. The idea was that older "orphaned works" for historical purposes and works where an author could not be found after a diligent search, could be used. As it is now they are locked for all time, never to be seen or used again in the public eye.

I think most people here understand the orphaned works issue. The problem, specifically with the UK bill, is summed up perfectly in this letter from The Lords Select Committee on the Constitution to Peter Mandelson (Current UK Secretary of State):

Quote

"The Committee's view is that this is inappropriate, and that "orphan work" should be defined in the Bill. Likewise the following matters are left for you as Secretary of State and are not settled in the Bill: the treatment of royalties, the deduction of administrative costs, the period for which sums must be held for the copyright owner, and the subsequent treatment of those sums. The Committee notes that regulations made under this section are subject only to negative resolution procedure; and that the provisions contain no express duty on you as Secretary of State to consult appropriate stakeholders....it would greatly assist the Committee if you could explain why you consider it to be constitutionally appropriate for what appear to be such wide-ranging and open-ended rule-making powers to be conferred on you as Secretary of State."

All those details are not actually legislated in the bill. They are subject to change at any time by the current, or any subsequent, Secretary of State with only the negative resolution procedure in the way. That makes me uncomfortable.

RacePhoto · « **Reply #18 on:** March 02, 2010, 21:17 »

I don't want to get into a long debate over what it will do and what it won't because we don't know. There are people that absolutely freak out and jump to conclusions calling it rights stealing, when that's not the intent. The uprising against the bills are often contrived and hypothetical fear mongering.

However, if the bill doesn't do what it's supposed to do, which is free up old works, for historical purposes and public access, without creating new issues and problems for current artists and new works, then it fails. In which case I would be against it.

As usual when politicians get involved, the cooking of a three minute egg it would take 50 pages of conditions and terms, legalese and confusion. Instead of simply getting to the point. "Boil it for three minutes."

Same goes for removing restrictions on true orphan works that don't deserve to languish in archives for eternity because the source can't be found or documented.

Let me put it another way. This should be additional to the current artist rights, not changing anything that exists at this time. If it doesn't then, it needs to be re-written to cover that aspect.

The second part (in the UK) about taking photos in public places is beyond comprehension and if that's what it really intends to enact, is absurd. Recording everyday life and preserving society and our lives is not something that should be regulated or prevented. The question remains, is that what it really says?

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Author Topic: Worrying legislation for UK microstockers. (Read 6494 times)

lightsatnight

Digital66

PeterChigmaroff

cathyslife

mantonino

lightsatnight

macrosaur

microstockphoto.co.uk

OM

gostwyck

lightsatnight

macrosaur

OM

macrosaur

cthoman

cathyslife

RacePhoto

lightsatnight

RacePhoto

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