I've been absolutely swamped with business lately. Between the Buildex convention here in Seattle and 'normal' shooting (now averaging 3-4 bookings per day) I've had almost no time to visit AR. :(

That said there is a very concerning issue at hand: The so called 'Orphan Works Bill'.

BTW, full credit to Glenda Cherry for breaking the story first. You can see her blog here. :)

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Basically the bill attempts put some rules in place for using other peoples images when you can't find them (in other words, 'orphan works').

This sounds good in theory...I suppose.

There might be situations where (for example) people would like to use images for commercial or documentary purposes that are say...from a long time ago...and have no clear owner.

The trouble starts when we take a look at the actual wording of the bill:

The bill essentially states that a person need only make a 'reasonable and diligent' search for the owner of the image.

Furthermore if the owner shows up and says 'Hey! You used my image without permission' the first party need merely say 'well, I TRIED to find you' (they are protected from any legal consequence). The bill doesn't actually define what a reasonable search is. It's a trial lawyers dream come true and a copyright defendants nightmare.

Are the alarm bells going off yet?

It's already difficult enough to defend our work in the digital era and our fine politicians have seen fit to put together legislation which will make it even harder.

Please join me in letting your local representatives know this is not ok.

Thanks, -B