UK.Gov passes Instagram Act: All your pics belong to everyone now

Maybe just require that orphan works must have author?

AFAIK, the legislation at the EU level on orphan works was sold as providing access to works whom copyright holder cannot be determined or contacted. Readers beware: I say copyright holder, not author. The problem is that the author is not the copyright holder in most of the culture-relevant works, that is, the ones that the legislation is trying to "get back" into publishing.

But in no place I've read that it seeks to "legalize" stripped works.

So, for the purpose of the legislation, they just have to:

- Require that the orphan work has author (and require that any use of the orphan mentions the original author). In this the orphan would be distinct from public domain.

- Additionally, require that the orphan work is older than XX years (perhaps 14 years, just as a homage to the original US copyright term), so as the original author has had some "automagical" protection.

Anyway, legislators following an easy to understand policy like the one above? Nah...

Photos Offline

I am closing my Flickr account tonight.

Image matching

Considering how easy it is to find where images came from via even Google Images and Tineye a lot of likely image theft will very easily prove it's not a diligent search. It's fighting that point that will be the issue.

People cheating in photography competitions, big fashion houses stealing designs etc have all been proven using basic searching that a child could do. A lot of what is on tumblr for example can often be tracked down very easily with only a small amount of effort. It's making sure that people not doing that don't get away with it.

And as a friend said if someone is stealing something off DeviantArt then it's very easy to prove it's yours

So if I stip the metadata from my MP3s...

does that mean the music industry can't sue me?

Fascism?

More like corporate communism.

As a copyright lawyer I don't see this legislation as being worth all this alarmism in any way. I certainly can't see any indications that the UK is violating its obligations vis à vis either the Berne Convention or the WTO treaties on intellectual property.

I have the perfect solution..

...send cheques or postal orders payable to "You've been had", PO Box 69, for full details.

Thank you for this enlightening article. The more people who see it and act upon it the better. I hope you don't mind,but I have included part of it in an article on my own blog and have given full credit and links back to yourselves. If this is not acceptable please let me know.

Thank you again.

Chris Birchall

http://hairyphotographer.co.uk/a-black-day-for-photography-copyright-theft/

News like this makes me want to sell up and move to another planet...

How will this affect other non-UK territories that do not enact similar legislation?

"In practice, you'll have two stark choices to prevent being ripped off: remove your work from the internet entirely, or opt-out by registering it. And registration will be on a work-by-work basis."

"There's value in works, and if anybody can exploit them except the person who creates them, then value is transferred to the exploiter," explains Ellis. "This is a massive value transfer out of the UK economy to US tech companies."

"It's corporate capitalism," says Ellis. "Ideally you want to empower individuals to trade, and keep the proceeds of their trade. The UK has just lost that."

Say I'm a photographer who works in advertising (I'm not, btw)

And my company has paid £xxx to some celeb for their ugly mug to appear. My image gets robbed. The celeb's face is being used outside of what was agreed. Who does the celeb sue?

Is this really a bad thing?

It always seems to me that copyright-by-default is a bad idea - most of the time, we gain hugely by sharing and remixing culture. Also, remember that every time you forward an email, or use a google-image in your presentation, you are breaking copyright law. We simply cannot operate in a strictly copyright-maximalist manner without making 99.99% of the citizens into law-breakers. (For that matter, how many of the Reg's own icons are you sure you licensed properly?)

If I could go back in time and tweak the first HTML spec, I'd clarify that "all content placed on the web is implicitly public domain, unless explicitly marked otherwise". After all, that's how most people think the web works, and actually how it does work anyway (because individuals can almost never afford to sue).

It's not as if putting a copyright tag into a jpeg/tiff comment field is difficult.

A licence to print money

I did a diligent search on "who did the picture of the queen on a fiver" and it returned nothing.

So I'm assuming the 5 pound note is an orphan work and will be doing my own copies of it.

How about protecting metadata...?

It should be your right to not have third parties strip your metadata out of your works. If I upload a photo onto Facebook, they shouldn't be permitted to strip out my EXIF data (at least by default).

What consititues a "diligent search"

Because if the rules are are too vague, then this act could effectively spell the end of copyright in the U.K.

Hang on....

When we are dealing with music/video piracy, don't the government cry blue murder? When we are dealing with photo piracy, they say "go right ahead"! Why this dichotomy? With music/video piracy the corporations lose out, with photo piracy the corporations stand to benefit. Hmm... anyone want to guess who owns the government? Rule of the people my arse!

Registration will be free

"what was your property by default will only remain yours if you take active steps, and absorb the costs"

Sure, but the costs will be pretty much zero, because there's a huge opportunity for registry websites to spring up, and they'll be free to use. So the only cost is your time in uploading the materials, and having a notarised record of your creation is a useful thing to have anyway in case of future disputes.

Eventually it will shake down to a few big registries, but they'll still be free. There are a bunch of business models which spring from having a huge repository of material and metadata.

* They can act as your agent, actively flog your work and take a cut of your fee. (Not everyone will opt into this, but some will)

* They can act as a shopfront; people can pay to have their material made more prominent

* They can charge users a small fee for performing the "due diligence" search, and/or for being put in touch with the copyright owner

* They can build on-line communities of artists and professionals, and flog advertising at them

* etc

e-petition

There is an e-petition to sign if you are against this law

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49422

Please sign and share the link.

Greed wins

UK.gov generally finds it very easy to do idiocy that makes no sense without breaking a sweat. This is in a whole class of its own. As a photographer, it simply represents the most depressing, soul destroying news I've heard since I started in this business. Photography as a business has been on shaky ground for a decade as it is, this is the final nail in the coffin for anyone who doesn't make their money entirely from first use of commissioned work. Those who came up with this have pretty much given core the of UKs creative business away to anyone who fancies nicking it. Graphic artists, illustrators, designers will all see incomes dissolve.

The fact that no other country is contemplating anything even close to this should tell us how deeply corrupt the corporate lackeys in government actually are, and how utterly devoid of intelligent leadership. Time to move across the channel to somewhere that respects the right to control and set a price for your own work.

Creative Ice Age

Creative Ice Age

This is just what this country doesn't need, let's for just one moment forget the corporate capitalism and the fact that this is just theft and think about what will happen if this is really going through. What will happen to Schools colledges and universities. Is it possible the established and international known Creative practitioners that upload images of their work will be harder and harder to find. do not all student use the Internet to research for their studies and it's a place where inspiration is found, it's a place where innovation opens doors to new ideas and possibilities.

If these established creatives lockdown their work because of financial constraints and fear of theft where will our new creative talent find their inspiration does this not move the nations creative talent forward. We are heading for a creative "ICE AGE". A place where creativity and innovation will slowdown to such and extent we will see the growth of our economy suffer. The UK's is seen as world leaders in creative education and economy and if this goes through it will be hit hard and it will impact on all other sectors that rely on creative innovation to develop now products and services.

This must be stopped not just for the Creative individuals that create the work and rely on their IPR to make them a living but also for future creatives and innovators that keep this country great.

Surely this must be stopped!!!

The Actual Position

I've not read all the posts and comments but the trend is that a misinterpretation has occurred and the original article is inaccurate as to the impact on copyright owners.

For clarity please read http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves.htm?goback=%2Egde_3480226_member_236935864

I work with many photographers seeking to protect their rights and do so on a contingency basis (% of damages recovered). If you want to enforce your rights there are solicitors out there, like me, who are capable of fighting your corner on a cost effective basis. Don't lose hope!