Mickey Mouse Bill Print Letter
May 6, 2008

Dear Artist,

The principle of post-monetization says that nothing is worth anything until somebody wants it. Those of us who make art for a living essentially operate--outside of commissioned work--on this principle. We make the stuff and put it out there. When somebody decides, for whatever reason, that they want it, then the amount they are willing to pay is exactly the value at that time. If we choose to resell, reproduce or replicate, that's our business too. We still own the copyright.

The convention of putting a little c with a circle around it became redundant in the U.S. in 1976. In current copyright law, every drawing, painting, photograph, poem or play is simply owned by you, the author. If somebody swipes it, or uses it without your permission, you have the law on your side to chase them down and get paid.

That's why the current Orphan Works Act now being considered by the U.S. Congress is particularly baffling. Promoted by dough-head non-artists who are obviously listening to big-time lobbyists, this bill says that you the artist must now officially register every single work you wish to protect. The on-line registries, presumably fee based, haven't yet been established.

Big boys like Disney have always felt the necessity to register copyrights. Can you imagine what's involved in owning and protecting Mickey Mouse? That's why I'm calling this the Mickey Mouse Bill. It continues to protect Mickey but leaves little guys like you and me with another layer of paperwork and expense. While in the guise of a last-ditch attempt to locate and release unclaimed (orphaned) work, in my opinion this is very bad legislation indeed. If someone can tell me the possible value of the Orphan Works Act, I'd really appreciate it.

Post-monetization is our life blood. The choice to defend an extant work should always be in the hands of the creator or his assigns. That's why the current law works so well. A few years ago, a car company decently asked me if they might use one of my (already sold) paintings in the background of a car ad. I named a reasonable fee and they readily agreed. We used a "one time only" contract and we didn't even use a lawyer. If the Orphan Works Act becomes law, Mercedes-Benz--without an author's prior registration--could just help themselves. No ask. No pay. Nutz.

Best regards,

Robert

PS: "The problem is that very few of the billions of images will ever be registered. No artist that I know of has the time to pull out every work of art they have ever produced and register them with all the upcoming electronic databases." ( Mark Simon , artist advocate)

Esoterica: The advent of the Internet has been somewhat responsible for this turn of events. Some pundits think we're about to enjoy the sunset of copyright. As it is, Chinese artists are ripping jpegs from the Western Internet, cloning and reselling our stuff like crazy. We can't get at them because they're in another jurisdiction. Now the U.S. wants this in their jurisdiction? Nutz. In the meantime, the big boys like Google and Microsoft would like to see Mickey Mouse happen. They've got the deep pockets to get what they want. I don't know about you, but I haven't, and besides, I don't like filling out forms.

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