Orphaned Works another view
The 2008 Orphaned Works Bills are creating a battle that wages on all over the internet, an excellent sample of this can be found here: http://mollykleinman.com/2008/04/16/wonks-and-librarians/
To amuse myself I've been researching the Orphaned Works legislation everyone is wetting their pants over, people are drafting letters and poised, ready to fight. I personally decided to take a different route, I went looking for where it might have come from, looking for who might have pushed for it, and who might be owed favors that might help get it over the hump before I write any letters. This is probably the most important thing I learned while battling politicians down in Coos Bay Oregon, "follow the money". It's a good lesson to learn. Anyway I ran into some interesting data while looking into contributions made to the politicians involved in the senate bill, don't you just love the internet?
First of all the senate version is also called "The Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 (S. 2913) It was introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and lists Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) as a backer, I find this odd because Hatch appears to have drafted this originally. It's named after Shawn Bentley, who was an intellectual property counselor for Hatch for several years before he died from cancer.
Interestingly enough he also worked for years for AOL/Time Warner... who happens to be a major contributor to most of the people heavily involved in both versions.... $41,100 to Leahy alone, they might very well be interested in this passing, but they were not the biggest contributor.
Other major contributors include a litigation attorney who defends naughty people who seem to infringe on patents and copyrights, Disney, and then there is "TechNet", an interesting little group of tech moguls, who do a lot of big money lobbying for "causes" that tend to make their members lots of money.... on the record, $81,491 went from Technet to Leahy alone last year, (John Doerr is at the top of the Technet heap), that's a lot of freaking gerbil food in my book. I find it interesting that Technet members are already profiting nicely from registries for health care, real estate and financial information, so IMHO they would be crazy to not be interested in making a bundle by creating a art registry. Technet is endorsing a move to lower patent violation penalties by Leahy and Hatch... info on that here . Now, if you read the OW legislation, both versions seek to lower and limit fines on copyright violations...in fact they read quit a bit like Technet's outline of the need to limit patent infringement lawsuits " for the good of humanity" of course. Ahem.... can I prove their donations to Leahy or Hatch are to encourage a push to get the Orphaned Works through and make money as a result? No, but it looks suspicious on a major scale to me.
I feel some deja-vue coming on.... and I suspect people are gonna need to do more than write letters to stop this, in fact I doubt it can be stopped. I haven't finished digging but there appears to be some major money going to the politician behind making these bills resurface, and some major players have to be involved, it could be Technet, or someone else who doesn't matter, not really. I doubt whoever it is, that they are use to investing large amounts of money and getting nothing in return. Maybe artists better start taking down their art and locking it up now.
I do have to say I haven't had this much fun since I tracked down the skinny on one particularly powerful Environmental Impact Study company in the mid-90's that was up to their elbows in obtaining way too much Federal grant money for performing environmental impact studies (prior to public works projects that seldom actually ever occurred) in financially depressed areas, especially along the west coast. I also found a link from them to suddenly appearing HIGH interest home loans in those areas that were defaulted on at a very high percentage rate, leaving them in control of large amounts of property, some of which they sold off at a loss to local small town politicians, some they kept... the value of all of it rose dramatically within a very short period of time after they got control of it. No one cared then and I doubt they do now, so I imagine that is still going on. I haven't seen anyone mention potential lobbyists for these bills yet so maybe no one but me cares about that either.
BTW, It's impossible to ignore the fact that Technet CEO John Doerr sits on the board of Amazon, Google, Intuit (quickbooks), and the investment company he is a partner in is the primary funding behind Zazzle, (sorta like cafepress). I also discovered that additional donations were also made separately from those by Technet to many of the politicians involved, in the name of John, his wife Ann, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers ( the venture capital group where John is a partner)... and under the name of everyone I have tracked so far that sits in power at Technet. The contribution numbers coming from this general direction will soar much higher than it appears on the surface..... Leahy may never need to buy gerbil food again.
It is always about following the moola, either where it's going to wind up, or who it's being taken from who has friends in the highest places, or who wants to make more. I'm just a nobody, finding this took info me a little over an hour, if I had the time and the desire to create a spread sheet and to cross reference contributions, names and connections the picture would get much scarier and clearer...and it might even lead in further reaching directions, but it is definitely food for thought and something to keep an eye on.
I am sure my daughter Ramie would admire the fact that John and his wife have shoveled a ton of money into backing stem cell research and lobbying for it. That is going to make someone a lot of money some day too.
Anyway I need to get some stuff done here at home.... more on yesterday after I accomplish something productive on the home front.
