Letterbox

Regarding "Goin' Fishing ", our Quill article for October: ........"If a democratic society is to survive at all, it must have the participation of the electorate......."

"Corinne, I so agree with you on this: indeed, the long incredible nightmare may well be over come November 4th. I feel hopeful about this. If not we and the entire world are surely doomed. The very thought of McCain_Palen at the helm of our beautiful country is too horrific to contemplate.

Again, I thank you for another splendid issue of Giraffe! It always comes with spreading rays of hope, positive information and beautiful imagery that you promote in others and that you continue to create. I so look forward to each edition and I am not surprised that Giraffe reaches into over 100 countries!

I trust this finds you well and as hopeful as I am about the coming election. I do wake up in the middle of the night in dread fear that some October surprise will be flung at us. Anything is possible because I so distrust the electorate and those who manipulate them. Somehow, this time--Obama will (must) win! I've put aside a very rare bottle of Italian red wine brought from Trecate that I plan to drain the night of a victorious 4th."

As to the use of ads on giraffe.com, there appears to be a rather wide divergence between those who support the use of ads and those who are opposed. Here are two views:

Pro: "As for the advertising, what I have seen so far is not obtrusive and in your face. It fits well with what you are presenting and I found the ads that I have seen as being helpful as introductions to further work if one is interested. Ads are part of our environment and there is no way to avoid them. Maybe you can start a trend of user-friendly ads."

Con: "I think it is important to create a realm outside the monetized advertised world. Maintaining schools, libraries, national parks and personal artistic expression as ad-free zones is important for cultural sanity."

Note to viewers: the total income from the ads to date has been zero.

On the subject of the Orphan Works bill, it is essential that collectors, curators, educators, artists, anyone interested in the visual arts, contact their senator and/or representative to make your voices heard. Here is what a trusted correspondent emailed me recently:

"On April 24, Senators Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Representatives Howard Berman (D-CA), John Conyers (D-MI) and Lamar Smith (R-TX) introduced legislation (S.2913, HR 5889), which is now being referred to as the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008. It is virtually the same bill that was presented in 2006, and subsequently rejected by Congress. But now, they are trying again.

If passed, the Act would radically alter copyright laws, taking away the automatic copyright now guaranteed to artists of all types who create any type of work. Right now, under U.S. law, you are automatically guaranteed copyright on everything you create, from the sketches in your sketchpad to your best paintings and sculptures. Under the Orphan Works Act, every creator will be required to register everything he or she creates in a private registry system, requiring a fee of course, and supposedly to make it easier for the ãpublicä to search for works and contact the creators if they want to use the works for some purpose. Everything created in the last 30 years will need to be registered through this as-yet nonexistent system, including those works already registered via additional fees with the copyright office. If they arenât, and some member of the public makes ãdue diligenceä to find the creator of a work and canât find him or her, that member of the public is entitled to use the work without any limitations, and artists will have no legal recourse. That means every piece of work you have out there, especially online, would be open season for use by major publishing houses and businesses (Microsoft ÷ who owns one of the largest online image databases ÷ and Google have already voiced support for the bill and indicated they will use thousands of images) and everyone in between.

Proponents of the bill say it will assist the public in identifying and contacting creators of works and going through the proper channels to contact them to ask for permission. While we understand the need for an organized system of search, there are MAJOR FLAWS in the proposed bill that need to be addressed before any such proposal should take place. Here are a few points:

· Under this law, you would need to register every piece of work you create, including those works that you have already registered with the Copyright Office officially, in some system that does not exist and would likely require you to pay to do so. The time and cost to do this is going to be prohibitive for visual artists.

· While this is meant to apply to all types of creative works, including music and literary, visual artists will be impacted the most because of the sheer volume of work we create, making it very expensive to register everything you have ever created or will create.

· For the visual arts, there would still be little protection for you and your work, even if it is registered, because search tools would rely on names of artists or titles of work, and not image recognition tools, which are still in their infancy of development. · Under this law, if you register your work, you would have to respond to EVERY inquiry sent to you for use of the work. So in other words, if you have a work out there in a registry system, and some person contacts you and says he wants to use your work for free on his Web site or in his new catalog, you would need to take the time to officially respond to every inquiry within a specified time limit, letting him know if you do not want to have him publish your work for free. This will take a lot of time and effort that we, as professional artists, do not have.

Last week, the House Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the bill, and yesterday, May 15, the Senate Judiciary Committee did as well. This means the bill will be presented to Congress, likely before the end of May.

We need you to write to your representatives ASAP and let them know that you do NOT want this bill to be expedited, as it is now. Tell them we need a better solution, or tell them you don't want it at all: Just be sure to tell them something soon."

Those of you who want to make your opinions known to your U. S. Senators can find their addresses, emails, and fax numbers at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress. Note added on 4.14.14: that URL is no longer valid. You might use this one instead: http://www.contactingthecongress.org/.

c.Corinne Whitaker 2008