The U. S Copyright Office has opened up a comments channel to hear your thoughts on creative ownership. Specifically it wants to know how U. S laws can better protect your works in relation to attribution and integrity.

This opportunity for creatives (including photographers) to have their opinions heard, comes as part of an ongoing public study undertaken by the U. S government. It aims to measure the ability of current laws to support authors in regards to their moral rights.

If you’re wondering what that term, “moral rights” means, the U. S Copyright Office’s statement explains it as such:

“The term “moral rights” is taken from the French phrase droit moral and generally refers to certain noneconomic rights that are considered personal to an author. Chief among these rights are the right of an author to be credited as the author of his or her work (the right of attribution) and the right to prevent prejudicial distortions of the work (the right of integrity). These rights have a long history in international copyright law. ”

This online call for public opinion follows several recent government hearings and committees on the subject. This is unsurprising, as over the last few years the war of creative ownership has only grown more intense. As I pointed out in the latest episode of Burst Mode, 21st century photo thievery takes a variety of underhanded forms.

If you’re a shutterbug or other visual creative based stateside and want to contribute to this survey (and you really should), you can do so on this page set up by the U. S Copyright Office. Be warned, you should do so ASAP since the deadline for submissions has been extended once already. You now only have until 30 March 2017 to be a part of enacting change in the way copyright infringement is handled.

2017-3-6 03:00