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.'"
Great an image laundering scheme for big business (Score:5, Insightful)
a) find image you want to use at site X
b) have someone strip the the image of identifying information and repost it at site Y
c) discover image at site Y lacking traceable information
d) do "due dilligence" based on image from site Y
e) declare image from site Y as 'orphaned'
f) PROFIT
lol wut? (Score:4, Insightful)
So does this go both ways... can individuals claim orphaned corporate content or do the corporates have YET ANOTHER special right?
What the hell is going on here? (Score:5, Insightful)
How is it possible that copyright not only keeps being extended to prevent works of corporations from entering the public domain, but now other laws start stripping rights of the public for their own works for the benefit of corporations?
Publish anonymously = get exploited by corporation (Score:2, Insightful)
great.
Re:Great an image laundering scheme for big busine (Score:5, Insightful)
With some luck, Google's "search similar images" function may make that scheme much harder
It's almost like you think corporations (that have interest in declaring the item "abandoned") will do a diligent search. Google "search similar images" function will be helpful if the searcher is trying to find the owner.
And if someone falsely declares an image to be "abandoned", what are the penalties, I wonder? Would the owner have to sue to recover his or her image ownership?
The abuse possibilities (for someone who has a legal department at ready) are practically endless!
Re:hint.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No...it means don't allow anyone else in the world to find/scan/copy your work and post it online or they own it. You don't have to ever post something online yourself to be affected by this.
Protects individuals from copyright trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
TFA's author uses only examples of corporations using content created by natural persons, but I see nothing in TFA so suggest that the law only operates in this direction. According to TFA, the law permits "commercial exploitation of images where information identifying the owner is missing, so-called 'orphan works'." This would also protect an individual or small business which innocently uses an orphaned image. The legislation makes it possible to use orphaned works, which otherwise would be impossible to use legally, as it is impossible to obtain permission from the copyright holder. Wikipedia's summary of the problem is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_works [wikipedia.org]
This legislation could also prevent "copyright troll" situations like this: http://www.ryanhealy.com/getty-images-extortion-letter/ [ryanhealy.com]
Re:hint.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If it's not worth enough to go to the bother of registering it then it's not worth adding to the legal quagmire that is default copyright.
Although the notion of "personal papers" has been lost in this modern era where every worthless scrap of paper is treated like some masterpiece. That shouldn't be the case at all.
The current copyright regime really isn't useful for defending against the loss of personal data either.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
All your base are belong to whom? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:they are doing it backwards! (Score:4, Insightful)
They're making YOUR content usable by corporations. What they are NOT doing is applying the same standard to works of corporations that no longer want your money so that Google Books et. al. can serve them up to the masses. Not surprising at all, really.
Wouldn't it be awesome if as soon as the original rights holder stopped offering a work for convenient sale, it entered the public domain? Sure, there are a zillion loopholes in that idea, but still...
Re:hint.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If it's not worth enough to go to the bother of registering it then it's not worth adding to the legal quagmire that is default copyright.
The problem with this is that a picture I take might be worth something, but that worth is less than what it would cost me in time/effort to get the money out of it (as opposed to an established publisher or news organization), so I don't. This legislation basically lets those established players hoover up that stuff and get money out of it, but without ever having to compensate the author.
Re:hint.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone else that removes identifying info from the EXIF so they can claim it's theirs.