My family doesn't eat publicity. by Lloyd Shugart on Jun 3rd, 2008 @ 10:05am

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/05/20/opinion/20lessig.html?s=2&pg=1 May 20th, 2008 5:30 pm Link I am a photographer who has worked for over 40 years. To a large extent, my retirement and estate will consist of the value of my copyrighted archives. The current proposals for the resolution of the "Orphan Works" problem will no doubt destroy much of the value of my work, since images can so easily be taken off the Internet, stripped of identification and distributed. This has happened to me. One image, which came to be important in the 2004 presidential campaign had been taken in 1970. It was stripped of copyright information and published over 400 times on the web. It was intentionally "orphaned". Many infringers did not even strip the copyright, they published it without permission or a license and claimed I shouldn't complain. "It is free publicity." My family doesn't eat publicity. The bill is a disaster for all intellectual property workers. If the government can list sex offenders and campaign contributors on the Internet, they should be able to manage copyright. — Leif Skoogfors, Philadelphia, PA Recommend Recommended by 9 Readers

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It was a lonely search. by Lloyd Shugart on Jun 3rd, 2008 @ 10:56am

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1202742156853&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

According to Marilyn Henry, author of Confronting the Perpetrators: A History of the Claims Conference, the process of reclaiming looted art has always been one of the most prickly of all Holocaust restitution issues.

"Countless Nazi victims spent decades trying to find artworks that once belonged to their families. It was a lonely search. The burden was on the victim to find what had been taken, to prove it belonged to him and to convince whoever had it to give it back," she says from her home in New York.

"Imagine looking for a needle in a haystack, finding the needle, and being told by the haystack owner that you had to prove you owned the needle before the war, and then convince him that he should return the needle to you."

Comments»

1. Lloyd Shugart - May 30, 2008

There are many issues with the law as proposed…mainly it just further creates hardship and litigation…….the only reason it won’t overwhelm the Fed Court system is that it will not be financially feasible to pursue protection of the copyrights, because the bill guts any damages and the attorney fees. As it stands now it will promote USE FIRST, and ONLY AK FOR PERMISSION if you get caught.

The only true way to slow the creation of Orphans issue is MANDATORY ATTRIBUTION, since our laws lack any moral rights, and Morals can’t be legislated to any effect. At least with Attribution, and google the living Artist will be able to be found. As Tammy indicates in her letter to congress the current proposal will only create further morass.

Lloyd Shugart
Unintended victim

Tammy,

full copy of Tammy’s letter here http://artsandcraftslaw.blogspot.com/

I read your letter on a Techdirt http://techdirt.com/articles/20080425/124144950.shtml#comments #12 posting, and I must say that of all of my readings on this issue. Your letter is on point of the real effects of this legislation, as it relates to creators, especially the visual artist.

I am the POSTER CHILD for why this is bad for the copyright creators.

I come from an experience that is real. I am in year 3 of a copyright litigation that, my legal bill now exceeds $500,000.00 USD.

US copyright laws currently lack “MORAL RIGHTS”…. before any “ORPHAN WORKS LAW” should be considered the copyright laws need to address at least “Mandatory Attribution” bc I don’t think that moral rights can be enforced by law.

My case involves thousands of images that were marked with my “CMI” embedded into each and every image, with metadata….client removed said data, and then licensed my images to hundreds of third parties who then licensed my images to thousands of additional third parties under their “Affiliate Marketing Programs”

So if you are an artist and are concerned with your artwork then you better be concerned with this proposed legislation, and the impacts it will have on your ability to sustain yourself.

As an aside, although I was the copyright owner, I was the defendant in this lawsuit. I was forced to incur $500,000.00 USD in legal fees to protect my copyrights. As a result I now have thousands of images being used by thousands of people whom are all using my images to make money….they have not paid one red cent for these assets…I can not pursue each and every one of them….and those that I do can claim as a defense that the work is either in public domain or an orphaned work, or that it was an innocent infringement.

How many readers have the kind of USD it take to protect your copyrights, even under the laws as they now stand? If the orphan works law passes as now proposed it will cost more to protect your rights both in real dollars and in your personal time, and emotions.

Propet USA v. Lloyd Shugart WD WA. Federal Court

Lloyd Shugart