It's time to make a difference!!

Okay I dont know if you've all heard about the two upcoming bills to be decided on, they are super important if you post photos online, or images of your original artwork at all...so educate yourself and take action! There is a quick online form you can fill out that will be sent to your local state representatives.

Because I cant say it any better than Claudine Hellmuth has already done, I will direct you to her blog with better information about H.R. 5889 The Orphan Works Act of 2008 and S2913 The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008.

This is a summary from OpenCongress.org:

"This bill would limit the amount of damages a copyright holder could collect from an infringer if the infringer performed a diligent search for the copyright holder before using their work. The goal of the legislation is to free up for reuse copyrighted works whose holders cannot be found. It would also set up a process for the Copyright Office to certify commercially-produced visual registries to help people locate the holder of a copyright and prevent the orphaning of works in the future. "

So how does this effect us?? Lets say we post our original photos/art online, and someone wants to use it for their commercial gain. They try to track us down, but for some reason are unable to locate us, well if passed this bill would then give them the right to "adopt" OUR work as free use because it was "orphaned". Only it wasn't orphaned, it still belongs to the creator even if the creator cannot be located. Please help us protect our photos! Go here to read more and take action!

**the links to those bills were pulled from Claudine Hellmuth's blog, just so you know.

Please spread the word, if you have a blog post the links. If you are active on a message board, share the information!