Because they do it already, in industrial quantities. As a member and moderator of the EPUK mailing list, we have 1,000 pro members, and the core business of the list is the daily, wholesale infringement practised by UK publishers, broadcasters and companies, including some of the biggest names. UK law is feeble. We have no concept of punitive damages as applies in the US to registered images. Consequently infringement is a sound business choice, since it mostly won't get found out and acted against.
ERRA is not aimed at pro's. Most of us are doomed anyway. It is aimed at commercially exploiting the sea of amateur images, whether orphaned or not, without the inefficiency and inconvenience of having to ask the owner.
This legislation has produced a torrent of FUD from uninformed commentators, and I'm sorry to say this article is no different.
Like most, you have mistakenly concentrated on orphans as the issue. Diligent search may turn out to be a tickbox affair or quite onerous and slow, so self-limiting. From my own test sample, 6 out of a random batch of 10 professional images proved impossible to trace and 5 would probably qualify as orphans. With amateur material splattered around pseudonymous accounts, it is likely to be much higher.
Photographers in UK have been vociferously arguing for the moral right to be identified since 1988, when the CD&PA witheld the right to bylines for most uses of photos.
The past 7 years have been no different. Every submission to successive reviews and consultations has made the same point: it is idiotic and unjust to allow the use of works whose authors cannot be identified while those authors have no right to be identified.
Whilst Government acknowledges the inarguable logic, it is not prepared to do anything about it because those lobbying for OW usage oppose it as "onerous". I have had the IPO tell me in a meeting that if that's what we want, to go away and write our own private Bill.
Similarly IPO claims metadata is already protected by law. The 2003 Copyright & Related Regulations made it a criminal offence to remove or alter metadata - but you have to prove it was done with the intention of infringing copyright. Since you can't, the law is a chocolate teapot and the BBC and most newspapers strip metadata of thousands of images a day with complete impunity - then lobby for the right to use orphans.
But far more potentially toxic is the ECL mechanism, which applies both to works of unknown AND KNOWN authorship. This simply stands copyright on its head. It breaks Berne and WIPO treaty obligations according to our legal advice, although IPO claim otherwise. It allows use without asking or price negotiation, and means that photographers will have to monitor everything published every day, if they want to claim whatever payment is offered, or opt out of the mechanism. And crucially, you lose the ability to say "no, I don't want that picture published" in some context you may not be comfortable with.
It is impossible to say at present what the outcome will be since the regulations are being composed away from Parliamentary or public scrutiny. But make no mistake, the UK has set the scene for corporate monetisation and exploitation of everybody's images, without asking. Some of us are not exactly happy about all this, especially those of us who have had years of engagement with the issue, and have wasted hundreds of hours trying, and failing, to convince Government not to cave in to corporate lobbyists.
This leguislation does not apply only to photos, but to illustrations, movies, articles, stories, books, scripts and so on. There is a particular problem with photos because there is a vast sea of the things waiting to be exploited, and no means of ensuring authorship is retained nor copying controlled.
But otherwise thanks for the sneery dismissal.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Tony Sleep.
Re: Re: orphan works.
ERRA is not aimed at pro's. Most of us are doomed anyway. It is aimed at commercially exploiting the sea of amateur images, whether orphaned or not, without the inefficiency and inconvenience of having to ask the owner.
More FUD
Like most, you have mistakenly concentrated on orphans as the issue. Diligent search may turn out to be a tickbox affair or quite onerous and slow, so self-limiting. From my own test sample, 6 out of a random batch of 10 professional images proved impossible to trace and 5 would probably qualify as orphans. With amateur material splattered around pseudonymous accounts, it is likely to be much higher.
Photographers in UK have been vociferously arguing for the moral right to be identified since 1988, when the CD&PA witheld the right to bylines for most uses of photos.
The past 7 years have been no different. Every submission to successive reviews and consultations has made the same point: it is idiotic and unjust to allow the use of works whose authors cannot be identified while those authors have no right to be identified.
Whilst Government acknowledges the inarguable logic, it is not prepared to do anything about it because those lobbying for OW usage oppose it as "onerous". I have had the IPO tell me in a meeting that if that's what we want, to go away and write our own private Bill.
Similarly IPO claims metadata is already protected by law. The 2003 Copyright & Related Regulations made it a criminal offence to remove or alter metadata - but you have to prove it was done with the intention of infringing copyright. Since you can't, the law is a chocolate teapot and the BBC and most newspapers strip metadata of thousands of images a day with complete impunity - then lobby for the right to use orphans.
But far more potentially toxic is the ECL mechanism, which applies both to works of unknown AND KNOWN authorship. This simply stands copyright on its head. It breaks Berne and WIPO treaty obligations according to our legal advice, although IPO claim otherwise. It allows use without asking or price negotiation, and means that photographers will have to monitor everything published every day, if they want to claim whatever payment is offered, or opt out of the mechanism. And crucially, you lose the ability to say "no, I don't want that picture published" in some context you may not be comfortable with.
It is impossible to say at present what the outcome will be since the regulations are being composed away from Parliamentary or public scrutiny. But make no mistake, the UK has set the scene for corporate monetisation and exploitation of everybody's images, without asking. Some of us are not exactly happy about all this, especially those of us who have had years of engagement with the issue, and have wasted hundreds of hours trying, and failing, to convince Government not to cave in to corporate lobbyists.
This leguislation does not apply only to photos, but to illustrations, movies, articles, stories, books, scripts and so on. There is a particular problem with photos because there is a vast sea of the things waiting to be exploited, and no means of ensuring authorship is retained nor copying controlled.
But otherwise thanks for the sneery dismissal.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Tony Sleep.
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