According to current copyright law, artists have copyright over their work from the moment of it was created. Ina case of copyright infringement, the artist can show sketches and preliminary studies and prove that the work was indeed created by him or her. Only when the artwork is presumably under copyright but copyright owner can’t be found, it becomes an orphan work and goes into the public domain for anyone to use without restrictions.

With the Orphan Work bill, it all can change. According to the proposed legislation, an artist must register each artwork down to the last sketch with one of designated private registries or it automatically becomes an orphan. Most artists can’t afford to register copyright over all their works even with US Copyright Office, much less with some private institution that answers to no one and can rise their prices as they please. But even worse, the proposed legislation officially legalizes copyright theft.

Mark Simon has a good article about this disturbing legislation: Mind Your Business: You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art. The fragment of a conversation between Brad Holland of the Illustrators’ Partnership and David O. Carson, general counsel of the Copyright Office, is especially disturbing.