VIGNALI STUDIO

Open Season Pencil Drawing

This drawing was done during a testing phase for the Open Season Project.

We were in the process of creating a prototype version of our film in CG, in order to test out the style of the film. We did a crane shot of the camera moving over the landscape, trucking through the trees, and then camera moves over a hill, and finally we reveal this shot. So, the entire drawing was done in various levels like a 2D film, with trees in front on an overlay, meadow and hillside with bushes and rocks, and then the finale with the waterfall and and old saw mill.

We put it all together using Maya like a multiplane camera with my drawings placed on cards. We completed this exercise, but we never completed a CG version of this shot as we had originally planned.

The drawings were done with graphite on animation paper.

Orphan Works Act Update

I've gotten a few comments that seem to suggest this isn't happening, or that it isn't even being talked about at the federal level. I provided links in my previous post to make it easier to follow this story. Please, just follow the links my friends.

Go to GovTrack.us and you'll see the Bill S.2913 has been introduced to the Senate on April 24, 2008.

As the Full Report link in the previous post will show, this has been presented to the both the house and senate. This is the first step in the legislative process, which means it is being deliberated, investigated and revised before it enters into the general debate.

If artists don't get motivated about this, or believe this is a hoax or an internet rumor, then be prepared to lose the copyright protection you currently have. Make your voices heard so as to add balance to those who want to create the Orphan Works Act. Now is the time you should be giving your testimonies. Politicians have no idea what it is to be an artist, educate them. Or else we may lose the copyright protection to spread our pixie dust across the bloggosphere.

Orphan Works Act

If this law passes, this may be one of the only ways to protect our artwork when we post online. Essentially, I would be rendering my artwork useless with a watermark to would-be users seeking to use my artwork without just compensation. But this watermark protection isn't a guarantee, because anything printed or reproduced without your copyright will now be subject to theft! (That's not to say your copyright wouldn't be purposefully stripped for the purpose of theft.)

Right now, anyone can download my artwork, but no one can legally profit off my artwork without just compensation to me. This is all about to change with this new bill being proposed. S.2913 and H.R. 5889.

Seeing a great big watermark is not a great way to blog or to show samples of our artwork on our websites, but this may be one of the only real protections left to us should this become law.

The Orphan Works act works like this. Is someone finds your artwork on the web, or printed elsewhere, without proper copyright and registration (or with the copyright stripped off), they can register it -- after a “reasonable and diligent search.”

What is a “reasonable and diligent search?” Our artwork would be posted somewhere within the dozens of privately owned registration houses, and it would up to us to find our artwork and claim it.

There will be dozens and dozens of privately owned registries, and billions of images throughout 100 years to sort through. Rendering the process of claiming our own images as nearly impossible. If, on the off chance, you find that you have been ripped off, your infringement claim is only limited to, “reasonable compensation.” (As per their actual literature on page 115 in the Orphan Works Full Report.) What is reasonable compensation? Well, it would NOT be the current compensation of $150,000. worth of protection the current law affords us. Fair compensation means there will be NO penalties for copyright infringement. But, if you catch them, they'll pay you what a court deems is a reasonable usage fee.

Now, if you want to protect your images from being ripped off, you would need to register your images with all these privately owned registries. How much will cost? Who knows? How many images to do you draw per year? I just registered one script idea with SAG, and it cost me $20.00.

As a commercial artist the Orphan Works Act puts the burden of copyright protection and enforcement on the artists, while at the same time giving a pass to the users. We have to register with all the registry houses, and they only have to register with one. This is a bad bill that seeks to undermine the government's long-standing legal protection for artists.

Who are these registration data bases that are going to profit from this? Microsoft, Google, Corbis ... to mention a few.

Whenever I see both Democrats and Republicans come together, get ready to grab your wallet! Such is the case with the Orphan Works Act Senate Bill S.2913 and House Bill H.R. 5889. Reps. Howard Berman (D-CA),Howard Coble (R-NC), John Conyers (D-MI), Lamar Smith (R-TX), (Chairman and Ranking Members of House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property and Full Judiciary Committee Chairman and Ranking Member respectively) and Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT).

Please get active and protect your copyrights, or be prepared to lose them!

Read the act, testimony or full report
Go to the Illustrator's Partnership Resource Page !
See the Brad Holland video about this act
Government contacts and sample letter!