On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 1:26 PM, John Sessoms <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: Joseph McAllister <[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> >> n Sep 28, 2008, at 00:26 , John Sessoms wrote: >>> >>> > From: "John Celio" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>>> >>>> >> Did any of you stop to think that maybe this is an important issue >>>> >> >> to people like us? Maybe some of you out there, who live in the US >>>> >> >> >>>> >> and create photographic (or other media) works that others might >> >>>> >> want to >>>> >> use, ought to be concerned about copyright laws? >>>> >> This isn't simply about politics, it's about protecting that which >>>> >> >> you have created. >>> >>> > >>> > My read on it is it will affect artists, authors & photographers > >>> > OUTSIDE the U.S. more than it might affect U.S. photographers. >>> > >>> > They're more likely to have works declared "orphan" because they > >>> > didn't previously pay to register them with some U.S. repository set > up >>> > for that purpose. That's one of the provisions of the act. >> >> It is only a provision that you MAY wish to register your work. If you do >> not, you are still protected exactly as you are today. If you do register a >> work, then you are able to sue for damages as well as compensation for use. >> > > Then that means I will NOT be protected EXACTLY as I am today, since TODAY, > I CAN sue for damages ... and under the provisions of this act will NOT be > able to sue for damages in the future unless I take the extra step of > registering my works. >
Actually, you need to have the work registered to sue for Statutory Damages today, otherwise all you'd receive is the equivalent to 'compensation for use', exactly what you'd get under the new law. The gist of the law is it provides a statutory framework for determining whether or not a work is orphaned and a legal test for what level of diligence is required for determining this. If it truly does require 'due diligence', it will be extremely difficult to classify any work as orphaned as 'due diligence' is just about the strongest possible test. -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
