I urge everyone who comes across this journal to read it, if you have not read the submitted news article. This is concerning the pending bill before the Senate and House called The Orphan Works Act 0f 2008, Bill # S.2913, which is being rushed to be passed by the end of this weekend. This concerns all artists, photographers, and authors of the rights to your work. This bill basically allows infringers to steal your work and claim it as their own, basically claiming ownership of the work. Under this bill an infringer can claim your work without consultation and compensation, and if taken to court, the infringer can claim that he could not find you, and the court can deem your work as "orphan work" and grant ownership to the infringer without copyright penalty or compensation. This is very serious. Under current copyright laws, even if an artist, author, or photographer is not registered with the copyright office, we still have certain rights under the copyright laws. This bill will make them obsolete. Just imagine a vacation photo that you posted on the web, and some company suddenly claims ownership and starts using it to either promote a product or advertise their company, without your permission or any compensation paid to you for the use of the photo. Under this bill, if you took them to court for copyright infringement, all the company would have to say is that they could not find you, and the court could deem your vacation photo as "orphan work" and grant the ownership & use of that photo to the company that stole it from you without having to pay you a dime for it. I think it is time for the artisitc community to stand up for its creative rights, after all it does say the land of the free, life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness? I urge you all to go to the following like and contact your senators and representatives (after all, are tax dollars pay their wages) and urge them not to pass this bill. This bill could ultimately harm the livlihoods of may artists, photographers, and authors.
Tell them to vote NO!

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