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Welcome to the official ROOBY MOON comic strip website.
Rooby Moon is now off line. I have removed this strip from the web both in protest against the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008, and in a (probably) vain attempt to protect my work should this act pass.
It is already a risk for an artist to post their work online. You have no control on who pulls images off your site and uses them. It is a risk that thousands of artists do on a daily basis in the hope that posting their work will lead to sales, or at least to some form of recognition. This Orphan Works Act legitimizes the theft of what are currently legally protected copyrighted works. By allowing these works to be now considered "orphan" works-- redefined as orphaned works by the person who "finds" them, these works will now be open game and up for grabs.
Any image, any writing, any entry in your blog, all of your family photos you've posted to the web are yours now. They have copyright protection from the moment they were created. No one can legally use them without your permission. No one can say that they just couldn't find you, so they get to use your work. Now, they can't. It's not theirs. It's yours. If this legislation goes through, that all changes. If someone finds your images, your work, your writing, the picture of your child, they can make what in their estimation is a "diligent" search. If they didn't find you, presto, the work is now an orphaned work and they are free to use it, with little or no fear of any legal backlash.
June 3
Chris MacNeil
from The Illustrator's Partnership:
Mail your senators today and tell them to vote NO on the Orphan Works Act:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11442621
The Orphan Works Act: Warning to the Public
Should the general public care about the Orphan Works Act?
Yes, because the effects of this bill will expose any citizen's visual images to infringement, including infringement for commercial purposes or distasteful uses.
Most people don't understand current copyright law. But under current law, they don't have to - the law itself protects them from not understanding it. Anything you create is considered your private property.
But under this amendment, all citizens would be required to understand that they must now take active steps - not to actually protect their work (because registries won't protect it) – but merely to preserve their right to sue an infringer in federal court (in case they ever find out they've been infringed in the first place).
Otherwise, ignorance of copyright law will be be no excuse against an infringer who has done a "reasonably diligent search" for a photo he found on a blog, photo sharing site, Facebook page, or other source.
Proposal for Copyright Warning and Public Awareness Campaign
If this bill is passed, copyright will no longer be considered the exclusive right of the creator. Therefore, Congress should direct the Copyright Office to commence an awareness campaign to be conducted in all media, explaining to all copyright holders the new terms of copyright protection. Public warnings should state at least the following:
“Due to a change in US copyright law, citizens should now be aware that any creative expression they put into tangible form – from professional artwork to family photos - will be subject to infringement, including infringement for commercial uses, by anyone in the United States who is unable to locate them by what the infringer determines – and a court agrees - to be a reasonably diligent search.
“To preserve your right to sue infringers in federal court, you are advised to take active steps to assert authorship of every work you create.
“These steps will include inserting meta-data in each work, marking each work with a copyright symbol and contact information and registering each work in commercial databases where infringers can search for your work.
“Ignorance of copyright law will be be no excuse against an infringer who has done a “reasonably diligent search” according to guidelines established by Congress.”
This should be the minimum warning information and it should be issued to the public on an on-going basis to alert successive generations of the legal obligations they will have to observe as the price of creating art of any kind. We also ask Congress to direct the Copyright Office to establish and maintain local law clinics where creators and other citizens can seek clarification about their obligations under Orphan Works law.
Don't Let Congress Orphan Your Work
You can urge Congress to oppose these bills by linking here to a special letter.
Tell Your Senators and Representatives to Oppose the Orphan Works Act at:
http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11442621
Please forward this message to everyone you know.
New York Times article by Lawrence Lessig
Published: May 20, 2008
Little Orphan Artworks:
"CONGRESS is considering a major reform of copyright law intended to solve the problem of “orphan works” — those works whose owner cannot be found. This “reform” would be an amazingly onerous and inefficient change, which would unfairly and unnecessarily burden copyright holders with little return to the public..."
an article at Drawn.ca:
Oppose the Orphan Works Act of 2008
"By now many of you are already informed about the proposed Orphan Works Act being introduced to the U.S. house and senate. For those unaware, this legislation, if enacted, can effectively undermine and dismantle your existing copyright protection.
Currently, copyright is granted the moment a work is created. This new Orphan Works legislation proposes a change in U.S. copyright that would (indirectly) require artists, illustrators, photographers, and any creative individual to actively maintain and defend their copyright by registering each and every work with privatized registrars. Failure to do so would leave everything you’ve ever created as an artist up for grabs by anyone who wanted to copy, reproduce, create derivative works of, or flat out steal your work since the act defines an “orphan work” as any work where the author is unidentifiable or unlocatable, and applies to both published and unpublished works, U.S. and foreign, regardless of age.
This is completely contradictory with international copyright standards and is ethically, logistically, and financially bonkers..."
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