Vote "NO" on Orphan Works Act! Sign The Petition

From the article: "If the Orphan Works legislation passes, you and I and all creatives will lose virtually all the rights to not only our future work but to everything we've created over the past 34 years, unless we register it with the new, untested and privately run (by the friends and cronies of the U.S. government) registries. Even then, there is no guarantee that someone wishing to steal your personal creations won't successfully call your work an orphan work, and then legally use it for free.

In short, if Congress passes this law, YOU WILL LOSE THE RIGHT TO MAKE MONEY FROM YOUR OWN CREATIONS! "


So please sign the petition, so far they have 9071 signatures, personally Id love to see 2.2 million signatures to really stick it to these jerks who think they can get away with passing this ACT January 2009. I have also posted this to all the forums of sites I belong to, to help get this message out, please post this message to any sites you belong to as well. The more who know and understand it, the better chance we have of getting through to our govt. and letting them know we wont stand for this at all! Just click on the banner below to be taken diredtly to the online electronic petition.

Sign The Petition here link:

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/no-to-orphan-works-...

This was my comment for them to read, its important for you to add a statement/comment, so they understand why we the artists find this apalling!
Comment: "I refuse to give up my works to people who see this as a way to profit off of others hard work and devotion. To allow this is to rob us of income and the desire to create. Imagine a WWW without imagery, that is what will happen because artists will refuse to post online out of fear of theft. This doesnt just effect us but also other related business's (like art supply, model designers, art selling companies) without us, they are no more too! VOTE NO on this ACT Passing PLEASE!"

Or you can also write to your congress-person in the U.S. House of Representatives directly go to :

Find your Representative link:

http://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml


Here is a place which has pre-made letters designed for your particular field of visual arts, some allow adding your own personal text too:

Standard letters available link:

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/


Also here's some more links explaining this whole issue if youre still unaware of the Orphan Works Act:

The Orphan Works Act of 2008 Bill # H.R.5889

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/bills/...

The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 Bill # S.2913

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/bills/...


More information and articles here too:

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&article_...

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Orphan_works...

http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr3739.html

http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~csundt/copyweb/

Thanks
ArtisticByNature

P.S. Thanks Rose for starting this petition.

Please let us know you signed here, so others will too!

Looking for Merchandise like buttons, bumper stickers, t-shirts that carry this logo and will help the public to know about this issue go to:

http://www.zazzle.com/lcweber/products?cg=1969733568308...

Again Thank You for your support!