I sent this out to my friends, and given the amount of creative types on CHUD, thought I'd share here. This is the long and short of it.
I'm not usually one for mass activist emails, but this subject is one that is incredibly important to me and very likely all of you. At the very least, click on this link and skim the article. See if you are not angered to the point of firing off a few impassioned emails at your local politicians. The gist: if this goes through, the ownership of any creative work not registered for copyright automatically reverts to a corporate agency.
Simple analogy to make the point abundantly clear: You bake some muffins. Everyone enjoys a nice, warm muffin, right? Not anymore. See, now there's the Muffin Registration Act, policed by the Muffin Agency. To eat your muffins, to share your muffins, to sell your muffins, to donate your muffins to the local bake sale, you have to register your muffins with the Muffin Agency. Don't have the cash? Those muffins are the Muffin Agency's muffins, Jack, and they will do whatever they want with their muffins unless you pay them for each one to recognize those muffins as yours.
Let's say you don't have a lot of cash, though. Who does these days? Write a really moving poem and post it to your blog? Not your muffin. Snap a beautiful photo of the Eiffel Tower and post it to flickr? Not your muffin. That random sketch you posted on deviantart two years ago you suddenly find the new corporate logo of Hot Topic? Not your muffin. That kickass D&D character you created 20 years ago, post about fondly on a blog, and now find has his own cartoon series, action figure line, and upcoming major motion picture starring Bruce Campbell? Not. Your. Muffin.
I know, an unlikely scenario, but an entirely possible one if this passes. This is not alarmist. This is becoming law. Even if you have no intention of ever creating a single image, song, or fictional character, remember that a lot of aspiring and even established creative folks could be completely screwed by this measure. They will have to pay for the right to call what they created their own. There are even more terrifying implications to this stuff the article sums up better than I could (here's a choice one: multiple muffin agencies = multiple agencies you have to pay to register each and every muffin), but the most important tidbit is this:
Go to http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml to quickly find the phone number, address and e-mail of every U.S. senator, U.S. representative, governor and state legislator.
Not only does this measure further corporatize art, it emboldens our government to sacrifice even more of our rights at the altar of the dollar. You can take it from there. Do something about this.
I'm not usually one for mass activist emails, but this subject is one that is incredibly important to me and very likely all of you. At the very least, click on this link and skim the article. See if you are not angered to the point of firing off a few impassioned emails at your local politicians. The gist: if this goes through, the ownership of any creative work not registered for copyright automatically reverts to a corporate agency.
Simple analogy to make the point abundantly clear: You bake some muffins. Everyone enjoys a nice, warm muffin, right? Not anymore. See, now there's the Muffin Registration Act, policed by the Muffin Agency. To eat your muffins, to share your muffins, to sell your muffins, to donate your muffins to the local bake sale, you have to register your muffins with the Muffin Agency. Don't have the cash? Those muffins are the Muffin Agency's muffins, Jack, and they will do whatever they want with their muffins unless you pay them for each one to recognize those muffins as yours.
Let's say you don't have a lot of cash, though. Who does these days? Write a really moving poem and post it to your blog? Not your muffin. Snap a beautiful photo of the Eiffel Tower and post it to flickr? Not your muffin. That random sketch you posted on deviantart two years ago you suddenly find the new corporate logo of Hot Topic? Not your muffin. That kickass D&D character you created 20 years ago, post about fondly on a blog, and now find has his own cartoon series, action figure line, and upcoming major motion picture starring Bruce Campbell? Not. Your. Muffin.
I know, an unlikely scenario, but an entirely possible one if this passes. This is not alarmist. This is becoming law. Even if you have no intention of ever creating a single image, song, or fictional character, remember that a lot of aspiring and even established creative folks could be completely screwed by this measure. They will have to pay for the right to call what they created their own. There are even more terrifying implications to this stuff the article sums up better than I could (here's a choice one: multiple muffin agencies = multiple agencies you have to pay to register each and every muffin), but the most important tidbit is this:
Go to http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml to quickly find the phone number, address and e-mail of every U.S. senator, U.S. representative, governor and state legislator.
Not only does this measure further corporatize art, it emboldens our government to sacrifice even more of our rights at the altar of the dollar. You can take it from there. Do something about this.
