UK Passes "Instagram Act" 230
kodiaktau writes "The UK govt passed the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act which effectively makes so-called 'orphaned' content posted on social media sites public domain. Corporations now only need to have made a "diligent search" to find the owner of the content before use. From the article: 'The Act contains changes to UK copyright law which permit the commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing, so-called "orphan works", by placing the work into what's known as "extended collective licensing" schemes. Since most digital images on the internet today are orphans - the metadata is missing or has been stripped by a large organization - millions of photographs and illustrations are swept into such schemes.'"
hint.... (Score:4, Informative)
don't post shit you want kept to yourself online
Re:This could go both ways (Score:5, Informative)
Once it's in the public domain, that's where it stays.
Copyright law isn't that absurd ... yet.
Re:Great an image laundering scheme for big busine (Score:5, Informative)
I also like tineye.com for image search based on an image. The database size isn't the biggest but I like the engine a lot. It can find photoshopped images too.
Re:This could go both ways (Score:5, Informative)
Not in the USA.
Works may be moved back into copyright so sayeth SCOTUS.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/scotus-re-copyright-decision/ [wired.com]
Fritz Lang's Metropolis was one big one moved back into copyright by Congress.
Re:lol wut? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:This just makes no sense (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't make any sense because The Register is full of shit as usual. This isn't a free for all. This is enabling legislation for one or more future (or present) licensing bodies to search for owners of apparent "orphan works" - works that at the moment cannot be used by anyone - and issue licenses.
There's pros and cons to that. With the biggest question, does the licensing body charge for licenses, and if so who gets the money.
What this is not is a law that will make it legal for any person, company or corporation to decide themselves that a work is an orphan, and so do what they want with it.
Re:This could go both ways (Score:5, Informative)
For clarity, in case no one reads your link:
Congress has the power to take works out of public domain. You can't just re-copyright any public domain work you run across.
Re:This could go both ways (Score:5, Informative)
In the US, photos meant to reproduce a 2-dimensional out-of-copyright work cannot be copyrighted. Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp [wikipedia.org] established that even difficult reproductions of 2D works are not original (this does not apply to photographs of sculpture, which has some degree of artistry to it).
Any classical performance and recording is a new work, but the original remains public domain. If you go secure some copies of the original sheet music (much of what is actually used today has been cleaned up more recently, and isn't actually out of copyright), you can perform any sufficiently old piece of music without any concern for royalties.
Re:This could go both ways (Score:2, Informative)
The issue there is about works that were public domain only in the US but were still under copyright in their foreign countries of origin. As a signer of the Berne Convention these works need to be treated as still under copyright, and treaties have force of law in the US. These are typically foreign works copyrighted after 1923. Nothing is going to re-copyright Beethoven's works for example.
Re:This just makes no sense (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2013/april/copyright-law-reforms-in-pipeline-after-royal-assent-given-to-enterprise-and-regulatory-reform-bill/
"Under the Government's plans, organisations that wish to use orphan works would have to conduct a 'diligent search' for the owner of orphan works before they could use the material. The searches would have to be verified as diligent by independent authorising bodies. In addition, organisations would have to pay a "market rate" to use orphan works so as rights holders could be recompensed for the use of the works if they were later identified."
Re:hint.... (Score:4, Informative)
There's no concept of copyright registration in the UK.
Article is wildly exaggerated (Score:4, Informative)
As always when it comes to IP, the Register is wildly exaggerating to the point of trolling.
What this bill will actually do is allow museums to use orphan works, but only if they put the market value of a licence to use them into escrow, in case the owner is found later.
The details of how this will work haven't been published, but there's going to be a very interesting legal minefield in there.
What's a fair market value for a modern image where CC0 alternatives exist?
What they will do if an image is highly likely to be out of copyright? For example photo of Queen Victoria is almost certainly out of copyright, because the photographer probably died over 70 years ago. What's a fair market value for the rights to use one of the rare ones that isn't out of copyright because the photographer was young when he took it, and lived to a ripe old age, if plenty of public domain ones also exist?
Re:hint.... (Score:4, Informative)
No... you should post it on your own web site with clear copyright information and metadata. That way there is no way any company can claim that they made a reasonable effort to find the owner and couldn't get the information.
Incorrect. In the US right now it's not uncommon for newsrooms to strip metadata and use photography even taken from professionals then claim ignorance or worse that they have a license (from a never specified third party). Corporations stealing photography for advertising, websites and promotional print media is common too.
Media companies own the big stock photography houses. The purpose of this law is to devalue photography for anyone but themselves, and to make sure that perpetual copyright isn't a two edged sword for them. The same legislation has been floated in the US.