Graphic Artists Guild News

White House Releases Plan to Protect Intellectual Property Rights

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:00:00 PDT

White House Releases Plan to Protect Intellectual Property Rights On Tuesday, June 22, 2010, the White House released the first Administration Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement. To develop this plan, the administration worked with governmental agencies and received significant input from the public, companies, industry groups, unions, consumer groups and academics, including the Graphic Artists Guild and The Copyright Alliance, of which the Guild is a member. This Strategic Plan makes intellectual property enforcement a priority by dedicating appropriate resources and expertise, and putting the right processes in place. Specifically, the administration will: • Lead by example by making sure that the Federal government does not purchase or use illegal products; • Be transparent in how it develops and implements policies, how information is shared and reported at home and abroad, and through specific efforts such as increased information sharing with rightsholders and victims; • Ensure efficiency and coordination of enforcement efforts across Federal, state and local levels, domestically and overseas, through means such as shared databases and increased coordination of investigation and training efforts; • Enforce international rights by combating foreign-based websites and other entities that violate intellectual property rights, by increasing enforcement with trading partners and support businesses in overseas markets, including China; • Secure the supply chain to stop illegal products from coming into the country by ensuring that law enforcement has the authorities that it needs, by encouraging voluntary cooperation by the private sector to reduce infringement occurring in the physical and the online world and by vigorously investigating and prosecuting criminal activity where warranted; and • Collect good data, such as analyzing jobs and exports that are generated by intellectual property-intensive industries to help drive future decisions and action and in order to build an open and fair environment for American intellectual property rightsholders. The IPEC (Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator) and the interagency committee on intellectual property enforcement will create four specific working groups to focus on government procurement, counterfeit pharmaceutical drugs, international capacity building and training, and the economic impact of intellectual property-intensive industries. The IPEC will continue to seek and receive feedback from the public as it works to implement the Strategic Plan. The Copyright Alliance was invited to submit the remarks it made in March to the next oversight hearing this week for inclusion in the public record. These comments are available here. A fact sheet and the complete report are available for download on the Graphic Artists Guild website here.

The Guild Responds to the Adminstration's Request for Input

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 PST

23 March 2010 Request of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator for Public Comments Regarding the Joint Strategic Plan The PRO-IP Act of 2008 FR Doc. 2010–3539 Comments Submitted by the Graphic Artists Guild, By electronic filing Re: Federal Register, February 23, 2010 (pages 8137-8139) Ms. Victoria A. Espinel United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Office of Management and Budget, Executive Office of the President intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov. Dear Ms. Espinel, Thank you for the opportunity to contribute our experiences and opinions as professional visual creators regarding copyright infringement. We appreciate the Administration’s request for recommendations to improve the Government’s intellectual property enforcement efforts. The Graphic Artists Guild is a national artists’ union that embraces creators at all levels of skill and expertise, who create art intended for presentation as originals or reproductions. The mission of the Guild is to promote and protect the economic interests of its members, to improve conditions for all creators and to raise standards for the entire industry. Its core purpose is to be a strong community that empowers and enriches its members through collective action. Along with our suggestions, we are including a White Paper written in 2007 about the economic impact of graphic art on the US Economy. Graphic art and illustration is used commercially in virtually every industry in the United States, and in a wide variety of media. Hundreds of thousands of Americans earn their living as graphic artists and illustrators, working both full-time and part-time[1]. Presently, 1,063 colleges, universities, technical and vocational schools have graphic design and illustration programs[2]. The US Copyright Office reported a total of 89,265 “visual art” registrations in 2007[3], and we know that only a small fraction of the visual works created in the US is registered with the Copyright Office. Graphic art and illustration are an integral part of the US economy and used on and with virtually every product sold and service produced in the country. A number of existing problems and situations regarding copyright infringement need to be addressed. Some fall under the auspices of the federal government, some under state government, some under international agencies, and some can be addressed by the private sector and ought to be endorsed and encouraged by the federal government. METADATA IDENTIFICATION There is no way to prevent infringement of visual works. However, a lot of infringement happens because of ignorance of the law or difficulties finding copyright owners. We should improve the ability for all Americans to abide by copyright law and identify and locate rights holders so that they may ask permission for usage. If it is free and easy to identify rights holders, the public is more likely to do it and comply with the law. Metadata identification technology already exists for digital works and has been used for some time. Software can embed metadata in the form of meta tags containing information about the rights holder in any digital file. (Of course, sophisticated users can remove this metadata, but most Americans can’t.) Two examples that apply to image files are the PLUS licensing system (www.useplus.com/aboutplus/coalition.asp) and Digimarc digital watermarking (www.digimarc.com/solutions/images). Currently, metadata tags with copyright, rights holder and licensing and contact information can be added to digital files within Adobe Photoshop. But a user must own the Photoshop program, know which command to use to find the PLUS license, and have the Digimarc plug-in with Photoshop to screen the image file for this information. Long ago, Adobe decided to release free software to the public to “read” digital documents created in their Acrobat program. · Adobe or another developer could produce a simple software utility to “read” metadata in digital files, and distribute this free to the public. A metadata “reader” could be incorporated into an HTML editor or web browser. We endorse this endeavor, and ask the IPEC to encourage this development in whatever way possible. · Adobe Photoshop CS digital editing software applications include a "counterfeit deterrence system."[4] The applications are programmed not to print scanned American banknotes, the Euro and the Indian rupee, and will show the user a warning message and direct the user to a web site[5] with information on international counterfeiting laws. Adobe voluntarily worked with the Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG) to develop this detection technology. Beginning in 1996 with European banknotes, these notes are printed with EURion Constellation to prevent counterfeiting using color photocopy machines. From the CBCDG web site: “A counterfeit deterrence system (CDS) has been developed by the CBCDG to deter the use of personal computers, digital imaging equipment, and software in the counterfeiting of banknotes. The CDS has been voluntarily adopted by hardware and software manufacturers, and prevents personal computers and digital imaging tools from capturing or reproducing the image of a protected banknote. The technology does not have the capacity to track the use of a personal computer or digital imaging tools.” Hopefully, similar technology could be used to prevent users from printing encrypted digital files protected by copyright. Americans do not understand copyright. Some Americans are aware that digital encryption exists in some digital media that will prevent them from copying copyrighted material. So, many Americans assume that when they are using their computer and they “save” or “copy” a file, or “right click” the mouse and are offered a menu that permits them to “save” or “copy” a file, that no copyright protection or limitation exists for the file they are using. They believe that if their computer allows them to “save” or “copy” the digital file, it must be legal. · There are three major operating systems in use in the world today; Windows (Microsoft), Apple (Macintosh), and Red Hat (Linux). It is entirely possible for program code to be added in the operating systems to the “save” and “copy” commands that would produce a pop-up or window that displays the metadata in the file (or the option to display that information), identifying the rights holder and copyright status. We request that these software companies make this change to their operating systems, and we would like the federal government to encourage and work with these private companies to facilitate easy compliance with copyright law by their consumers. DETECTION USING IMAGE SEARCHES Image search software already exists, produced by companies such as TinEye (www.tineye.com) and PicScout (www.picscout.com). We suggest the IPEC consider establishing a federal copyright infringement detection service for rights holders by utilizing image search software to locate infringing uses on the Internet if requested by a rights holder, and then aid the rights holder in enforcement action against the infringer. THE U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE Most visual creators do not register their works with the US Copyright Office. Either they cannot afford the fee, they don’t know how, or they aren’t even aware of the registration process. Most Americans don’t know that Copyright Office records can be searched to locate the rights holder of a registered work. The federal government and Congress can and should improve the operations of the Copyright Office to better serve the public. · Visual creators would be more likely to register their works if group registration for multiple works of illustration and graphic art were permitted, regardless of their respective publication dates, just as group registrations for photography are currently available under current Copyright Office rules.[6] · The US Copyright Office now has online registration. Rights holders are encouraged to submit a digital file as their deposit copy with their online registration. However, shortsightedness and cost issues prevented the Copyright Office from taking the database one step further to the most potentially useful functionality for the 21st Century. The online registration system was not set up to include the image file as a viewable and searchable part of the record of registrations for visual works, and, currently the Office resists the idea of building a searchable image database. This is particularly discouraging given the fact that the Office does not keep most deposit specimens as hard copy. We respectfully request that IPEC support funding for the US Copyright Office to establish a searchable image database of registered visual works. · We respectfully request that IPEC supports funding for the US Copyright Office to develop a faster, simpler, low-fee or no-fee means for the public to search registration records to locate rights holders. PROSECUTION AND LEGAL ACTION Copyright infringement is rampant, especially the copying of digital works and scanning visual works into digital format. Infringing robs rights holders - both businesses and individuals - of licensing income. As a practical matter, except for large corporate copyright owners, our current copyright laws are virtually unenforceable when it comes to the infringement of visual works. Too often when infringement is discovered, there is little or nothing a rights holder can do to stop the infringement or recoup financial damages. Domestic litigation is too costly, and completely impractical for damages under $30,000 or so. We hear from our organization’s members and other visual creators that most infringement of their images results in actual damages of less than $15,000. That’s not much to big business, but to self-employed independent contractors and small studios this is a significant loss of income. Attorneys will not take on these infringement cases even if the work is registered, particularly if it’s clear that the infringer would never be able to pay actual damages, statutory damages or the rights holder’s legal fees. We also hear from visual creators that often their work was not registered prior to the infringement, making legal action completely impractical economically. This relatively “small-value” infringement happens to virtually every professional illustrator and graphic artist during his or her career, causing economic harm to small businesses and families. The Graphic Artists Guild endorses the creation of a small-value copyright infringement court within the federal district court system so more rights holders can take action against infringers. The Copyright Office began to study this a few years ago; and has endorsed the concept in connection with proposed solutions for orphan works issues. We respectfully ask the IPEC to facilitate the establishment of a practical alternative to the current Federal District Court system, which is really only viable for large-value infringement cases. Most visual works are not registered, and the unscrupulous business sector is aware of this. Many businesses take a calculated risk when they deliberately infringe an image, presuming that the image has not been registered, and that in the event that the visual creator discovers the infringement she/he will not take legal action. Currently, if a work is not registered before the infringement occurs, the copyright owner may recover only actual damages, and that typically would not even pay the visual creator’s legal fees.[7] For example, Another illustrator discovered hundreds of illustrations published in her book had been illegally scanned and are presently offered for unauthorized sale on a web site hosted by an American who refuses to remove the images and has threatened to sue her. The Graphic Artists Guild endorses changing copyright law to permit statutory damages to all rights holders. This would make the penalty of infringement of all works protected by copyright much more significant, and thus would be a strong disincentive to infringers. Foreign infringers are unresponsive and generally untouchable by American rights holders. International copyright treaties are unenforceable for individual rights holders. International litigation is cost prohibitive to all but large corporate rights holders. Artists have reported a variety of deliberate international infringement to the Guild. For example, · Several American illustrators had their images swiped from their portfolio web sites and published in China in a book that was later imported and sold in the US. The artists were unable to take legal action against the Chinese publisher. · An American illustrator attended the SURTEX licensing trade show in New York City, were she met the British owner of an online stock illustration business. He took the CD of her entire collection of illustrations with the promise of a licensing deal. Instead he uploaded her collection of over 100 images to his stock web site hosted in England, and refused to remove them. She cannot afford the extensive international legal action against this infringer. · Many illustrators have discovered unauthorized display and uses of their images on web sites hosted in foreign countries and have been unable to get the foreign ISP to remove them. · We urge the Administration and WIPO to enact real and practical cooperation with foreign governments to establish a practical procedure for rights holders to remove infringed images from the Internet, including on web sites of foreign hosts. Perhaps this requires procedural coordination with the copyright authorities of other governments, as well as changes to international copyright treaties to clarify how member countries shall combat copyright infringements on the Internet. ICANN’s Universal Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, and network of domain name dispute arbitration providers, is an example of how international cooperation can work (www.icann.org). EDUCATION Our last, but certainly not least important, recommendation is education. As we stated, Americans do not understand copyright law. Americans are not taught about copyright law, and people of all ages in most professions know little or nothing about it. Infringement usually occurs out of ignorance, or a misconception of copyright law. Our best efforts for enforcement will not stop rampant copyright infringement in this country unless both the creators and users of copyrighted works understand their rights and obligations. Copyright is a constitutional right. As a nation we ought to educate the public, beginning in grade school, about copyright as part of basic Civics curriculum. Some European countries already teach grade school children about copyright in public schools. Educating the public is the only realistic means to alter infringing use stemming from ignorance of the law and misconception. We would like to see the Secretary of Education facilitate and distribute consistent and accurate educational materials to state departments of education. Educational materials already exist. For example, · The CSUSA (Copyright Society, www.csusa.org) has already created an educational module online called “Copyright Kids” (www.copyrightkids.org). · The Copyright Alliance Education Foundation has free curricula for K-12 schools, including “Copyright in the Classroom” (http://www.copyrightfoundation.org/library_of_classroom_curricula). · The IFRRO (International Federation of Reprographics Rights Organizations, www.ifrro.org ) Working Group on Copying of Visual Material produced a marvelous publication in 2006 titled “The Art of Copying” (http://www.ifrro.org/show.aspx?pageid=library/publications&culture=en). ABOUT THE GRAPHIC ARTISTS GUILD In the course of its 43-year history, the Graphic Artists Guild has established itself as the leading advocate for the rights of graphic artists on a wide range of economic and legislative issues, from copyright to tax law. Through its publication of its Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines (13th edition to be published in fall 2010), the Guild has raised ethical standards in the industry, and provides an invaluable resource on pricing information that is relied on by both artists and clients. The Guild’s newsletter, the “Guild News,” provides lively, provocative, and useful coverage of developments in the visual communications industry for its readers. The Guild also provides a wealth of services and benefits for its members, including educational programs, employment opportunities, discounts on a multitude of products and services, a legal referral network, and grievance handling. The Guild’s website offers up-to-date information on what’s going on with the Guild, updates on advocacy issues, members’ portfolios, individual chapter web sites, and links to related organizations. The Guild also has a blog, All Things Copyright (www.allthingscopyright.com) that posts relevant and pertinent information regarding copyright related issues and how they impact the visual arts. Thank you for your consideration. Respectfully submitted, John P. Schmelzer, President Lisa Shaftel, Advocacy Chair Colleen Doran, Advocacy Committee Member Linda Joy Kattwinkel, Esq., Advocacy Committee Member Todd LeMieux, Advocacy Committee Member Tricia McKiernan, Executive Director [1] Sources; Dept. of Labor and IRS [2] Source; US College Search www.uscollegesearch.org/graphic-design-colleges.html [3] Most recent data source; US Copyright Office 2007 Annual Report [4] “Wired” online magazine www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2004/01/61890 [5] The Central Bank Counterfeit Deterrence Group (CBCDG) www.rulesforuse.org/pub/index.php?lang=en [6] See http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl124.pdf [7] See 17 U.S.C. § 412

Graphic Artists Guild Sues Google

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 PST

Graphic Artists Guild Sues Google Copyright Protection in Digital Era a Cultural Priority NEW YORK – Today the Graphic Artists Guild joined several other creative sister organizations and individual visual artists to file a class-action lawsuit against Google, Inc. in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The Guild’s leadership says they’re determined to protect artist rights and the future of American culture by defending the copyright protections guaranteed among the first provisions of the U.S. Constitution and codified in U.S. copyright law. At issue is Google’s recent digitization of books numbering in the millions for the benefit of the Google Library Project. Most of the books included protected visual works. Google has negotiated a settlement with text authors and other rights holders whose work was unlawfully digitized but left thousands of visual artists without any compensation. The Guild maintains that Google’s move sets a dangerous precedent in a digital era that has made copyright infringement a commonplace event. “Most of the copyright infringement since the advent of the Internet has been on a relatively small scale that still robs our economy of millions of dollars every year,” Guild President and suit complainant John Schmelzer said. “Institutionalized copyright infringement from Google not only threatens the future of an $8 billion industry, it undermines the very fabric of American culture.” Copyright protection was among the first guarantees the American founding fathers deemed necessary for the survival and growth of a vibrant country. Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates Congress’ top priorities and specifically orders the promotion of the useful arts by securing a creative’s exclusive right to their work. This directive resulted in the Copyright Act that has been in force since 1790. The Guild and dozens of other creative sister organizations have defended against numerous challenges to copyright protections for decades, but the dawn of the digital era has enabled copyright infringement to reach a level never before seen. The music industry alone estimates that 95 percent of musical Internet downloads are pirated. The perpetrators of these and millions of other thefts sometimes do so out of ignorance of the law, but the Google Book Search represents a cognizant violation of law on an industrial scale. Meanwhile, the Guild recently responded to a request for commentary from Ms. Victoria A. Espinel, U.S. Intellectual Property Coordinator, about ways to strengthen intellectual property rights. Espinel is a new executive-level appointee whose position was mandated by the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008. The law signed by President George W. Bush on October 13, 2008 is intended to bolster U.S. intellectual property law. “On the one hand, we’re given hope the government will make intellectual property theft a top priority for law enforcement,” said Guild Executive Director, Patricia McKiernan. “On the other hand, we’re fighting in court to prevent what should be a clear violation of existing law. ” Ms. McKiernan and the entire Guild leadership noted in their response to Ms. Espinel’s request for commentary that graphic art is used on and with virtually every product sold and service produced in the U.S. Foreign infringers are virtually untouchable by U.S. rights holders and likely cost the U.S. economy billions in lost revenue. During a time of gaping deficits, the U.S. cannot afford to allow the free usurpation of cultural work that in many ways defines American life, the group contends. It’s particularly egregious when the threat to American culture and industry comes from a domestic source like Google that’s subject to U.S. law. Other complainants in the case include The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA), the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA), Professional Photographers of America (PPA), photographers Leif Skoogfors, Al Satterwhite, Morton Beebe, Ed Kashi and illustrators John Schmelzer and Simms Taback.

Copyright Alliance Supports Google Suit and Commends Schmelzer

Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 PST

Visual Artists Sue Google Thursday, April 8th, 2010 by Patrick Ross If you get your hands on 18 million books you don’t own, make full copies of them, and look to profit from them online, expect a bit of legal trouble. Google’s latest headache is from photographers and illustrators. You go, visual artists! Let me say up front that while the Copyright Alliance didn’t play a part in the development of the March 7 class-action suit against Google by photography and graphic arts organizations and individual photographers and graphic artists — and the Copyright Alliance hasn’t been involved in the Google Book Settlement pending in court — but I have myriad professional and personal connections among the visual arts plaintiffs. Disclaimer below. You can read a press release on the suit here, and this is The New York Times’ take on the case (I believe they had the story first). It’s not a surprise, really. The Google Book Settlement stemmed from a class-action suit by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and the Authors’ Guild against Google for massive infringement. (AAP is a Copyright Alliance member.) Whatever you may think of the settlement in its various iterations, one thing that has never been denied — it’s spelled out clearly in the settlement language and has been affirmed by the judge weighing the settlement — is that parties that weren’t party to the original class action are not a party to the settlement. That left visual artists on the sidelines. They petitioned to join the settlement, and the judge basically said, “No, but you can file your own suit.” And they have done so. There’s another party explicitly excluded from the settlement — songwriters and their music publisher partners. Song lyrics in books typically are licensed, and of course there are printed musical scores aplenty. It will be interesting to see if those parties also file their own class-action suit. The plaintiffs in the April 7 suit can point to specific cases in which books from a multitude of libraries who had loaned their books to Google for scanning had images scanned without authorization. That’s a fact that even Google can’t argue with. Now Google’s argument that scanning 18 million books without the permission of the rightsholders involved in those books is “fair use.” A few million of those books were in the public domain, but imagine how devalued copyright would be if a corporation can make a copy of every single copyrighted work without permission with the possibility of monetizing them. Essentially copyright ceases to exist, but that wouldn’t be any great loss to the “public interest” groups that supported Google’s original scanning and legal defense in the authors’ class action suit, or of course it’s the ultimate desire of Google and its outspoken copyright counsel. Who knows where this will lead, but my heartfelt congratulations to visual artists across the U.S. for banding together and suing the most powerful global corporation in the online world today in defense of their rights. DISCLOSURE: Four of the plaintiff organizations — the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP), the Professional Photographers of America (PPA), the Picture Archive Council of America (PACA), and the Graphic Artists Guild (GAG) — are Copyright Alliance members. PPA served on our board in 2008, ASMP does currently. In addition, I consider two of the individual plaintiffs friends. Leif Skoogfors, an accomplished photographer, spoke at the May 2007 launch of the Copyright Alliance and is active in our one voi(c) grassroots network. John Schmelzer and I have connected due to his tenure as president of GAG. He has been featured at our 2008 and 2009 EXPOnentials on Capitol Hill. Perhaps more importantly to me, this masterful illustrator with decades of professional experience has served as an informal mentor to my daughter, an aspiring visual artist. He gave her some valuable lessons at last fall’s EXPO, so valuable she says she learned more over those few hours than she has in dozens of hours of classroom instruction. My favorite piece of advice from John to my daughter? He had her sketching EXPO attendees, and she complained about how hard it is to sketch candids of individuals because they keep moving. Emphasizing the need to develop speed, John told her “If you want to sketch still people, sketch cadavers.”