Frank Stella stands up for Copyright Laws...etc.
Current mood: rebellious
Category: Art and Photography
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Artist Frank Stella (I'm not going into it - you can check him out on Wikipedia...and you should... his stuff is fantastic - especially anything post 1980s in my opinion... although his late 1950s cardboard work was revolutionary in its own right) wrote a nifty little article here:
http://theartnewspaper.com/includes/common/print.asp?id=8022
about a proposed change to current copyright law, which would wreak havoc on current policy as it pertains to an artist being compensated for use of their work in a commercial sense. It would remove any penalty for copyright infringement if the creator of a work, after a diligent search, cannot be located.
Current law holds steep fines and penalties for piracy of a work of art in any form (copyright holder may obtain a halt to the infringement, the destruction of infringing copies, and damages that may be up to $150,000 for each work of art infringed!). The proposed change in copyright law would leave it up to the potential user to make a "good faith" effort to locate original artists of "orphaned works". There is no stipulation on what consists "good faith" insofar as I can find. And, the only recourse for an artist after the fact would be lengthy legal proceedings which may or may not reward the artist with a limited amount and makes no mention of halt to infringement.
Stella also points out in his article in "The Art Newspaper" that it is especially easy for drawings paintings, etc - in contrast with songs or works of fiction - to become separate from their source, and any identifiers, in this digital age.
One can only hope that Congress rejects the proposal...made by...here it comes... The Copyright Office itself!!! So my ultimate question is this: why would a body (The Copyright Office at a federal level) attempt to institute legislation to make its own job (maintaining legal aspects of Copyrights and policing the piracy of said copyrights) more difficult?!!
I just don't get it. Go Frank Stella... tell it like it is...
Currently reading:
Survivor: A Novel
By Chuck Palahniuk
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