The recent panic attack by blogger Mark Simon, titled
You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art, has spilled over from DeviantArt communities to the furry mainstream. Ash Cairo for one seems to take it at
face value and others around LJ, FA's forums, and Clawcast are also buying Simon's story wholesale. Few have bothered to consider Simon's claims or bothered researching the proposed act of law he's gone crazy over; one
very good explanation answers a number of common questions,
this response from a y!Gallery admin explains in depth why Simon is wrong. And for brevity I'll explain:
His claim: if the Orphan Works Act passes, artists will immediately lose all copyright to their works, unless they register their work with a private registrar. Unless registered, artwork will be termed "orphaned" and it may be used by anyone for free, claimed by another artist, registered under another name or other stolen.
Reality: the Orphan Works Act of 2006 was never voted on and appears stalled. Were it to pass, artists and their works would be protected under copyright law as they are now, with one exception. If a particular work's creator could not be located with a reasonable and documented search, and the work is used with attribution, then the creator is limited in legal damages should an infringement suit be brought.
Early last year Stanford professor of law and writer Lawrence Lessig
explained the act and gave his opinions on the matter. This might be where Simon's fear about art registration comes from (no such thing in the act), though Lessig proposes a system much more similar to patent law, and without registration artists don't lose all rights -- just some rights to sue for damages. For the rest of Simon's article, it seems likely he's sensationalized and outright fabricated things, and the amazing amount of attention he's received and page impressions would explain why he did it. Furry gossip queen Lynn Onyx looked up more about Simon and the people who oppose this half-fictional bill
in this report which provides more background and links.
