{"id":4896,"date":"2015-07-18T09:25:44","date_gmt":"2015-07-18T13:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsunderthedome.org\/malc\/?p=4896"},"modified":"2015-07-22T13:28:44","modified_gmt":"2015-07-22T17:28:44","slug":"part-2-artists-letters-to-the-copyright-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/artistsunderthedome.org\/malc\/news\/part-2-artists-letters-to-the-copyright-office\/","title":{"rendered":"Part 2: Artists’ Letters to the Copyright Office"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Illustrators Partnership of America posted “Part 2”\u00a0of its national call for “Artists’ Letters”\u00a0to the Copyright Office.\u00a0 Please take the time to send in a letter and to share this national call-to-action with as many people as you can. Artists of all disciplines and any individual who wants to retain the rights to their intellectual property (think family photos you post on FB, the web etc.) need to take action and send in letters by July 23, 2015<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Embedded below is an extensive interview with Brad Holland<\/a>, one of the founders of the Illustrators’ Partnership of America, by Will Terry. It is time well spent to better understand what is at stake, the scope of the issue, and who\/what is behind this push to change the US copyright law (hint: it is big corporations, not individuals or small businesses).<\/p>\n

Under current US copyright law, if one’s work was registered with the Copyright Office and was infringed\/used without permission, compensation for your attorney fees were covered and statutory damages were awarded.\u00a0 This will no longer be the case with what the Copyright Office is proposing. \u00a0Your time and attorney fees will come out of your pocket, a dramatic change from current copyright law.\u00a0See MALC’s July 17th blog post<\/a>\u00a0that gives the basics on what is being proposed:
\nhttp:\/\/artistsunderthedome.org\/malc\/news\/helpful-info-for-composing-your-responses-to-the-copyright-office<\/a><\/p>\n

And as a reminder, and to underscore what is at stake, Mark Getty* was\u00a0quoted as saying, in 2000:<\/p>\n

\u201cIntellectual Property is the oil of the 21st century. Look at the richest men a hundred years ago; they all made their money extracting natural resources or moving them around. All of today\u2019s richest men have made their money out of intellectual property\u201d<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0~”Blood and Oil,”\u00a0The Economist<\/i>\u00a0(March 4, 2000), p. 68<\/p>\n

* Mark Getty, the grandson of oilman J. Paul Getty and co-founder of Getty Investments LLC and Getty Images, \u00a0one of the largest private owners of photographic images and moving images\u00a0http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n