Artists against the "Orphan Works Act of 2008"

Bill H.R. 5889, entitled the "Orphan Works Act of 2008" attempts to create a database of artistic works to allow users of other people's works the chance to find the owner and properly attribute the work.

Commentary on the problems with this can be found here in their entirety, but are summarized below:
"It will expose your art to commercial infringement. It will include work from professional paintings to family snapshots. It will include published and unpublished work. It will include any image that resides or has ever resided on the internet. It will force you to register every picture you do with privately-held commercial registries. It will make all unregistered works potential orphans.

This radical change to U.S. copyright law will shift the burden of diligence from infringers to rights holders. It is wrong to give infringers the right to make money from your property without your knowledge or consent. You should not have to pay businessmen to keep the work you’ve created."

Further commentary in an email I received from a friend who is a photographer states:
"If you wish to protect your work (each and every separate piece) you will have to digitize it and register it with private sector registries as yet uncreated, for a fee as yet unestablished. I say registries because this bill places no limit on how many separate registries there could be.

It gets worse. Anyone can submit images, including your images. They would then be excused from any liability for infringement (also known as THEFT) unless the legitimate rights owner (you) responds within a certain period of time to grant or deny permission to use your work.

That means you will also have to look through every image in every registry all the time to make sure someone is not stealing and registering your art. You could actually end up illegally using your own artwork or photo if someone else registers it."

Finally, the actual text of the bill can be found here, while a link to an online petition is here.