UK gov to essentially abolish copyright laws and take all the money

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UK gov to essentially abolish copyright laws and take all the money

arc

this is where i stand
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http://www.copyrightaction.com/foru...s-non-consensual-photography-in-public?page=1

The end game is now in sight. The Digital Economy Bill is now expected to become law within the next 6 weeks. It introduces orphan works usage rights, which - unless amended, which HMG says it will not - will allow the commercial use of any photograph whose author cannot be identified through a suitably negligent search. That is potentially about 90% of the photos on the internet.

Copyright in photos is essentially going to cease to exist, since there is no ineradicable way of associating ownership details short of plastering your name right across the image

bad times.


So Flickr, Google Images, personal websites, all of it will become commercial publishers' photolibrary. A fee will have to be deposited with a collecting society in case the owner spots the usage. The author who discovers his work has been used as an orphan can then make a claim and receive a percentage of the peanuts, after the collecting society has had its share, and the government its share.

This is perhaps a slight improvement over earlier proposals, whereby HMG egregiously planned to keep all the fees itself.

Essentially, if photos were cars, so long as the numberplate is missing (or you can get rid of it and claim it was), you'll be able to legally TWOC and use it on payment of a fee to the Government.

Please write your MP about this, templates are here;

http://www.copyrightaction.com/digital-economy-bill-mp-letter-template
 
It isnt all that much different to now. We have a hell of a time tracking down owners of photography. Most of what is online is not of usable quality for commercial use but i will have to take a closer look before i go further.
 
Thanks for this arc. Good piece of info as I've started out on my way as a photographer.

No photo is leaving my laptop without a watermark now. Have to see what KingFisher are going to do to protect my work.
 
I agree with everything said on here, it does suck. But do you really think a petition will do anything?

I suppose its better than sitting by and doing nothing as we commonly do in this country.

Maybe we could gather the FF possy and the gang bus and go terrorise parliament and show Gordon Brown exactly how to bully someone :slayer:
 
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It's not about a petition, but it's a bill - so MPs must vote on it, so if we write to our MPs and let them know we don't like it - they're more inclined to not pass it.
 
It's not about a petition, but it's a bill - so MPs must vote on it, so if we write to our MPs and let them know we don't like it - they're more inclined to not pass it.


Do you actually think MP's listen to the public? :ROFLMAO:

I would say 99.9% of the stuff government change is hated by 100% of the population.
 
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