Happy Halloween...

A Holiday Sketch…

Hi Guys,

Just a quick Blog today, whilst I am away at the Malta Convention (the beauty of modern technology).

As I have been doing here, at this time of year, on the Blog here, for your delectation, is this year’s Halloween Sketch.

Don’t forget to look over your shoulders tonight…oh yes and remember, never leave the room and say…"I’ll be right back!"

BOO!!!

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…

October 31st 2009

Malta Convention...

Convention News Update…

Hi Guys,

Tomorrow I will be setting off for the hopefully sunny climes of Malta and the first ever comics convention, organised by Wicked Comics. I will be joined by fellow comics creators, David Lloyd, Mike Collins, Warren Pleece, and Sean Azzopardi.

Unfortunately Ian Gibson is unable to join us, as he is suffering with the flu at the moment, so just a quick word from myself and the convention guys, get well soon Ian.

For those of you going down to the Malta Comics Convention I hope to see many of you there and for those wanting to see what it is all about you can do so via the above link. This is the first in what will become an annual event.

The convention is taking place this weekend of Saturday the 31st of October and Sunday the 1st of October. So, as I said in an earlier Blog, if you are attending and want a Halloween sketch, now is the perfect time to ask me for one.

I will be taking along the original pencil artwork for Worlds End, so folks there can take a look at the artwork for the forthcoming graphic novel. I will also have some other things, which I will be taking along such as the Worlds End Ashcan, and a limited amount of the usual Wizards Keep merchandise, which you can find in the shop on the Wizards Keep Website, amongst some “freebie” stuff too. My full itinerary list was given in yesterday's Blog.

The weekend looks set to be an amazing event set in the St. James Cavalier, which is an historic building converted into an arts and creativity centre. The show will have talks, movies, and there will be some gaming as well, alongside of which will be some retailers and both local and foreign artists.

I am looking forward to it immensely and if any of you guys are going along, please come over and say hi.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 29th 2009

Malta Convention...

Latest Malta Comic Convention News…

Hi Guys,

The Latest A3 Posters arrived here at the Keep yesterday from the printers.They say a picture paints a thousand words, so without further ado here is my latest Worlds End poster exclusively created for the first annual Malta Comic Convention taking place this coming weekend:

Below is my Itinerary for the weekend:

• Saturday morning - Children's Comic Book Workshop - Approximate times: 10:00 am - 13:00 pm
• Sunday morning - Children's Comic Book Workshop - Approximate times: 10:00 am - 13:00 pm

I am being joined by my good buddy, Mike Collins to run the above workshops.

The rest of the weekend will see me sketching for the fans at the Wizards Keep tables and will be joined by Mike Collins, David Lloyd, Ian Gibson, Warren Pleece, and Sean Azzopardi at theirs.

On show at the Wizards Keep tables will be:

• The original pencil artwork from the first volume in the Worlds End Graphic novel series.
• Worlds End Ashcan
• The above "exclusive" Malta Comic Convention A3 Poster
• Worlds End A2 Posters
• Worlds End "BriteMat" Mouse Mats
• Tim's first Sketch Book
• 1 x each of the A3 Giclee Prints
• Bookmarks
• and a few "Freebies" too for good measure

Due to the weight constraints of travel to Malta the above products are very limited in numbers, for which I apologise in advance.

If there is any product you wish to order now, please send an email to us here at the Keep and we will endeavour to make sure it is packed ready for the trip for you, thus saving you the shipping cost.

I will be sketching throughout the weekend.

So if you want a

Worlds End sketch before the book is released now is the time to ask.

Also, as it is Halloween weekend and you fancy a Halloween Horror special, please feel free to ask.

A quick note about sketches, if you want a sketch of a specific comic book character, please bring along a comic, or picture of the character you want, for reference.

I am very excited about the trip and looking forward to seeing you there.
Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 28th 2009

Worlds End Update…

An update on the forthcoming graphic novel series.

Hi Guys,

I thought I would continue to let you guys know the ever-increasing progress being made on the graphic novel.

Yelena continues to send through very impressive pages of flat colouring and I am working my way through the digital painting in Photoshop, alongside illustrating the colouring book.

I received a glowing review of the PDF version of the script and pencil art off John Ridgway, a while ago and that has inspired me to try even harder to make this the best comic work I have ever produced.

Don’t forget the Ashcan, which contains artwork, which will not be in the graphic novel is on sale at the Wizards Keep website, for £1.50 and comes with a £2.50 money back voucher, which can be redeemed against the cost of the graphic novel upon release.

The vouchers are now very limited, so please order soon to avoid disappointment.

You will still be able to order the Ashcan, when the vouchers do run out though and don't forget they contain artwork, which will not be in the graphic novel.

Advanced orders for the graphic novel will also be taken shortly, by simply placing an order for the book in the website shop. An announcement here on the Blog and on the website will be issued when this process becomes available.

A FREE Ashcan is being given out with each advance order and will ship in advance of the graphic novel with FREE shipping. A free Ashcan does not come with a money-back voucher, as it is a freebie item.

Now for me it’s back to the computer to paint.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 26th 2009

Dead Ahead...

A Review of the Mini Series…

Hi Guys,

Today I am going to review the mini-series from Writers, Clark K Castillo, Mel Smith, and Paul H Birch and Comics Legend/Artist Alex Nino and colourist Moose Baumann, or at least the first two issues anyhow.

As you guys know I am a huge fan of Alex Nino’s work and also a friend of Paul H Birch. When Paul first mentioned he was working alongside this legend of comics I was excited, both for Paul and his involvement and to know there was a new and much needed series coming from Alex.

I also know Mel Smith through my involvement a few years ago when I was asked to take part in a multi-artist jam on a charity comic book for him entitled, Feed America's Children - Featuring Major Impact, which my good buddy, Richard Elson inked for me.

As you all know I was unable to attend BICS a few weeks ago and I was due to meet up with Paul over the weekend and grab a copy of issues one and two. Well you can imagine my surprise when a few days following the convention a package arrived at the door and there inside the envelope was issues one and two.

I could hardly contain myself and stop from reading it there and then…but I somehow managed to do so, well aside from a couple of scans of the pages of art.

I saved the books for bedtime reading material and boy was it worth the wait.

For any fans of Alex’s artwork – if you think you know his work, check this series out!

Alex Ninó has an amazing talent and habit of changing his style to suit the subject matter and as done this since I first saw his work way back in the cloudy realms of the 70’s. This latest work, looks as fresh and new, as any I have seen in comics for a while and is living proof that older guys can produce great work!!!

The artwork is certainly modern looking, as are his wonderful layouts and disproves the myth that the world of comics has to have young creators to be relevant, trendy and cool and any of the other expletives we so often see when describing the business of comics.

Sure, young guys and gals have something to bring to the table, but hopefully Alex’s latest work goes a long way to bring down the myth that comics are a young man’s game and that age plays no part in what we do, when you are truly talented.

The colourist has done some beautiful work here too and, unlike a lot of todays over glossed and over rendered and sometimes obscuring, dark oeuvres, which obliterates line work and I constantly hear artists rightly complaining about, adds to the flavour perfectly. I don’t whose idea it was to match these two artists but it was a shrewd move from whomever it was.

Now what about the story, I hear you say, well how can this fail in today’s market filled as it is with a "love of all-things Zombie". It’s full of walking, rotting corpses, but the hook and the difference here with this tale is that for the most part it takes part at sea, and so is a wonderful twist on the usual Zombie fare.

It’s been a while since I was this excited about a comic series and it has inspired me to make a new effort to check out a comic shop, ASAP, to see what other hidden gems are out there, amongst the sea of product so thanks for that guys.

If you love great comics, if you love a story with a difference, if you love great artwork then really do yourselves a big favour and get this book now before it becomes an expensive back catalogue comic with inflated prices. Because when it does, and it will you will still have to buy it.

I cannot wait to get my hands on the third issue and I really hope this leads to more new work from the team.

The best looking book I have seen in years.

Alex Ninó still rocks big style!!!

What more can I say, except, why are you still here reading this, go and get the book!!!

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…

October 24th 2009

Cloud 109...

I discovered a little gem…

Hi Guys,

Yes I know the subtitle above sounds like a title for a 50’s B-Movie Monster Movie, or a Stan Lee Jack Kirby 50’s Monster Comic, but it’s true I think I have.

Today I am going to take a quick look at the work in progress from Writer, David Orme and Illustrator, Peter Richardson.


I came across the work of the two guys above, when I was contacted by Peter via email a week or two ago. It was one of those moments you get every now and again, which leave you immediately feeling, “Yes, this is really going to be great!”

It is in the early stages of development and on the Cloud 109 Blog you can see the work in progress, as it develops.

The story, as much as I have seen, is a great romp with lots of interesting twists and turns and I cannot wait to see it in full.

The artwork is so easy to look at and so fun-filled and has instantly hooked me. Again a reason for me to say I cannot wait to see this finished.

I am sure the guys will have no objection to my sharing the two pages here with you. I simply had to share this great new work with you and I wish them every success with it.

I, for one, will be constantly keeping my eye on this book and I hope you will too.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 22nd 2009

The Tempest...

A Review of the graphic novel…

Hi Guys,

This time around I thought I would review my good buddy and fellow comic artist, Jon Haward’s latest 144 page graphic novel for Classical Comics, Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

My personally signed book arrived the other day and I have spent a while looking through and reading it.

I have the black cover original text version, so there is a lot of dialogue, because after all, the book is based on Shakespeare’s famous play, The Tempest. Yet once again the skill of Jon and his abilities to lay out clear storytelling makes this a joy to look at and read. It doesn’t look like there is a lot pf dialogue, when in actual fact there is.

Like its predecessor, Macbeth, the book is an impressive tome. Jon manages to weave a visual feast from start to finish. The artwork is typical of Jon and full of action and yet, as dictated by the story, there are also quiet contemplative moments where Jon slows the pace down and alters the layouts to suit.

His work in the superhero genre is self-evident here once more with exciting dynamic pages full of wonderful action sequences, offset by the more sedate moments, when the reader is allowed to come up for air once more.

Adapted by writer John McDonald and ably abetted by inker Gary Erskine and the vibrant bright colours and lettering of Nigel Dobbyn, with design and layout of the typography of the book by Jo Wheeler and Carl Andrews, Classical Comics’ Clive Bryant looks set to have a new hit on his hands, in no small measure down to Jon’s artwork.

This is a great opportunity for children, as well as adults to view the works of classical stories by such writers as Shakespeare and my hat is off to everyone, for making this so.

I hope schools do the obvious thing and order copies for the library and to sell to the children too, especially during book week. As I have said before we have some terrible literacy problems in the UK, despite living in a world full of information technology, and books like this go someway to addressing such problems.

All the guys should be proud of this work and I think I can safely say to Jon and the team I think you have another winner here, so make room for more awards.

I still haven’t found a favourite page yet, but it’s early days and I keep changing my mind, as upon each visit one sees more and more to remember.

Thanks for the book Jon, it rests on my shelf next to Macbeth in the studio, here at the Keep.

My advice to you guys, even if your bag is superheroes…go out and buy a copy, you won’t be sorry you did, honest.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…

October 17th 2009

Malta Comic Convention...

1st Annual Comic Event…

Hi Guys,

I have been invited down to the Malta Comics Convention as a guest. This is the first in what will become an annual event.

The convention will be taking place in Malta on Saturday the 31st of October and Sunday the 1st of October. So if you are attending and want a Halloween sketch, now is the perfect time to ask for one.

I will be taking along the original pencil artwork for Worlds End, so folks there can take a look at the artwork for the forthcoming graphic novel. I will also have some other things, which I will be taking along such as the Worlds End Ashcan, and a limited amount of the usual Wizards Keep merchandise, which you can find in the shop on the Wizards Keep Website, amongst some “freebie” stuff too.

Fellow guests include; David Lloyd, Mike Collins, Warren Pleece. Sean Azzopardi, amongst others.

The weekend looks set to be an amazing event set in the St. James Cavalier, which is an historic building converted into an arts and creativity centre. The show will have talks, movies, and there will be some gaming as well, alongside of which will be some retailers and both local and foreign artists.

The event is being organised by Wicked Comics.

If you want to get in touch to arrange to go along or for further information please contact Chris Galea via email at:

chrislegalle@gmail.com

I feel very honoured to have been invited to this first event, as a guest and I am looking forward to it immensely.

If any of you guys are going along, please come over and say hi.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 9th 2009

Thanks for the support...

Back to normal here at the studio…

Hi Guys,

Just a few words of thanks to the countless people who commented on all my social and professional networks and via email here at the Keep, offering their words of support and also offers of help.

It was incredible, from the moment I announced I could not attend BICS, the emails poured in. The work is now sorted and hopefully lessons learned by those responsible, if nothing else, the cost of doing so, should do.

I am now happily back on with the digital painting of Worlds End.

Yelena has sent through more pages, so the page count for flatting stands at page 1 through page 30, so she is moving along nicely.

James is casting his eagle eyes over the script and art and I have had very positive reviews from John Ridgway, who has read the script and seen the completed pencil art too, which all bodes well.

The nice thing John said to me the other week is that he wants to buy two copies, one to keep and one to look at until it is worn out. True praise from one of the grand masters of comic book art.

There is still a lot of work, including the lettering by Richard, when the script is given the final edits, but it has moved on massively from the start of the summer until now, so I am smiling, as I write this small Blog.

Thanks again to everyone that got in touch, your support means the world to me.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 8th 2009

Orphan Works Bill - Update...

The latest news from the USA…

Hi Guys,

I received this on Friday evening and thought I would post the updated news as usual. Sorry it’s a bit late, but it has been manic here, to say the least, these past few days.

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part III
10.2.09

Compelling Arguments

On September 10, 2009, Marybeth Peters, Register of the US Copyright Office, testified before Congress in opposition to the Google Book Search Settlement. Her arguments on behalf of creators’ rights are compelling and we support them. However, we note with some irony that they are nearly identical to the arguments we made in opposing the Orphan Works bill last year. We don't know what conclusions to draw from this fact, but we think it's fair to draw attention to it.

We've picked several examples below and matched them with quotes from our own writings and testimony. In every case, the emphasis is ours.

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The [Google] settlement is not merely a compromise of existing claims, or an agreement to compensate past copying and snippet display. Rather, it could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: The bill's sponsors say it's merely a small adjustment to copyright law. In fact...its provisions have been drafted so broadly it will orphan the work of working artists. Its consequences will be far reaching, long lasting, perhaps irreversible and will strike at the heart of art itself."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[The Book Rights Registry] is likely to have the unfortunate effect of creating a false database of orphan works, because in practice any work that is not claimed will be deemed an orphan."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "As clients come to rely on these [visual arts] registries as one-stop shopping centres for rights clearance, any works not found in the registries could be infringed as orphans."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Compulsory licenses... are scrutinized very strictly because by their nature they impinge upon the exclusive rights of copyright holders...By its nature, a compulsory license 'is a limited exception to the copyright holder's exclusive right . . . As such, it must be construed narrowly.'"

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[The Orphan Works bill] radically abridges the fundamental principal of exclusive rights granted to creators under the copyright law, and creates a sweeping compulsory license permitting large scale unauthorized use of not only older works, the provenance of which may be difficult to determine, but also of the valuable contemporary works that are the economic life blood of those in our profession."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Compulsory licenses are generally adopted by Congress only reluctantly, in the face of a marketplace failure."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The Copyright Office only received about 215 relevant letters to their Orphan Works Study. From this they deduced a claim of widespread market failure in commercial markets..." " But the Copyright Office studied the specific subject of orphaned work. They did not inquire about the workings of commercial markets and there is no evidence in their report that business clients are unable to find the living authors they wish to work with. No evidence whatsoever."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "In summary, the out-of-print default rules would allow Google to operate under reverse principles of copyright law..."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[The Orphan Works bill] creates the public's right to use private property as a default position, available to anyone whenever the property owner fails to make himself sufficiently available." "[I]ts logic reverses copyright law."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "In essence, the proposed settlement would give Google a license to infringe first and ask questions later..."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "Since orphan works transactions would occur only after infringement, the rights holder would have no leverage to bargain for more than the infringer is willing or able to pay."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[C]opyright law has always left it to the copyright owner to determine whether and how an out-of-print work should be exploited."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "Under copyright law, no author can be compelled to publish his or her work. So by what right of eminent domain can Congress give strangers the right to publish our work without our knowledge, consent or payment?"

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The broad scope of the out-of-print provisions and the large class of copyright owners they would affect will dramatically impinge on the exclusive rights of authors, publishers, their heirs and successors."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The fundamental problem with the Orphan Works Act is that it's been drafted so broadly its use cannot be confined to real orphaned work situations." "To redefine an orphaned work as "a work by an unlocatable author" is to radically re-define the ownership of private property...Since everybody can be hard for somebody to find, this voids a rights holder's exclusive right to his or her own property."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Some foreign governments have raised questions about the compatibility of the proposed settlement with Article 5 of the Berne convention, which requires that copyright be made available to foreign authors on a no less favourable basis than to domestic authors, and that the "enjoyment and exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[P]utting pressure on creators to subsidize the creation of privately-owned registries violates the intent of international copyright law, specifically Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention: "The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The ability of copyright owners and technology companies to share advertising revenue and other potential income streams is a worthy and symbiotic business goal that makes a lot of sense when the terms are mutually determined. And the increased abilities of libraries to offer on-line access to books and other copyrighted works is a development that is both necessary and possible in the digital age. However, none of these possibilities should require Google to have immediate, unfettered, and risk-free access to the copyrighted works of other people. They are not a reason to throw out fundamental copyright principles; they are a pretext to do so."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The Internet has created a culture of appropriation; and immediate global access to artistic works has facilitated piracy, unintentional infringement and plagiary. But instant and unrestricted access to work should not be construed as a necessity just because technology has made it a possibility. That an artist's work now can be instantly transmitted around the world without the artist's permission or control does not justify a user's 'right' to take the work."

Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[T]he settlement would inappropriately interfere with the on-going efforts of Congress to enact orphan works legislation in a manner that takes into account the concerns of all stakeholders as well as the United States' international obligations."

IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "This bill has been drafted behind closed doors, without a needs-assessment study, an economic impact analysis, or an evaluation of how the public would be affected by this transfer of private property from individuals to giant commercial databases...For artists, the most troubling part has been our near-total exclusion from the legislative process."

"On July 11th [2008], on behalf of all those who oppose this bill, [we] submitted Amendments to the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. Those Amendments would make this bill a true orphan works bill. The Amendments have never been considered...This is no way to re-write U.S. copyright law."

Q.E.D.

The Register's full testimony from September 10, 2009 can be found here.
Our comments have been excerpted from various articles posted in 2008 on the IPA Orphan Works blog.

Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog

Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.

Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

As always, I will post more here, as the news comes in.

Does this mean the US Congress will see sense, or will corporate power overrule all sense in the matter?

I, for one, hope it is the former.

For the moment, at least for me, it's back to digitally painting Worlds End

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 7th 2009

British International Comics Show 2009…

I cannot now attend this weekend’s Comics Convention.

Hi Guys,

To say I am gutted is an understatement, especially in light of planning to meet so many people and being unable to attend Bristol earlier this year too.

I have worked insane amounts of hours to enable me to have newly rendered pages as well as the full Worlds End book as finished pencils, but I have spent most of today trying to salvage a commercial job, which I am involved with for another company, because of some basic stupid mistakes being made, not of my making, which I will not go into here for obvious reasons.

Suffice it to say though, if I were to attend this weekend’s convention I would be unable to meet my end of the deadline for the other company’s client, which I cannot allow to happen.

I can only apologise to everyone, professional and fan alike that have spoken to me in recent weeks and arranged to meet up with me.

This was an important event for me, as it is the largest UK event now, before next summer, with which to promote the graphic novel, so to say I am really not in the best of moods with the guys responsible for the mistake is also an understatement.

That said, I hope all of you guys going along have fun and that the event is a resounding success for both James and Shane the two organisers, to which I have sent personal messages to apologise in advance.

I look forward to hearing how the show goes, sometime next week.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 2nd 2009

Orphan Works Bill - Update...

The latest news from the USA…

Hi Guys,

I received this earlier and thought I would post the updated news as usual.

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part II
9.29.09

A Reversal of Copyright Law

Last Friday we summarized the basic details of the Google Book Search Settlement. Like the visual arts "databases" we opposed last year, this agreement would allow both Google and a yet-to-be-created Book Rights Registry to commercially profit from an author's work whenever they say they can't locate the author.

Both schemes would force authors to opt out of commercial operations that infringe their work - or to "protect" their work by opting-in to privately owned databases run by infringers. This Hobson's Choice for authors reverses the principle of copyright law.

The by-product of the Google settlement (again like the Orphan Works bill) would be to establish public access to private property as the default position in copyright law. In other words, it presumes:

a.) That the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right,
b.) That it's your legal obligation to make your work available, and
c.) That if you fail to do so, you forfeit your exclusive right to control access to your work.

If you're an author and you wish to keep the book you write from becoming a potential orphan, you'd therefore have to register it with the Book Rights Registry run by the parties that settled with Google (and who will receive an award of $30 million for cutting themselves in).

Advocates of the deal try to justify it by saying it will make more books available to more people than at any other time in history - a claim that's no doubt true - but therefore they say, as Andrew Albanese writes in Publishers Weekly, "the massive public good of the deal far outweigh[s] the individual grievances [sic] of rights holders."

Yet it's in this very argument that the danger lies.

Once the Copy Left has established a legal precedent that the property rights of authors can be subordinated to the assertion of public interest, they can build on that principle to enact further statute and case laws to benefit commercial interests. To do this, they'll have to chip away further at the inherent property rights of individuals.

Orphan Works: "Half a Loaf"
An example of the agenda that underlies both the Google book search settlement and the Orphan Works bill came in May, 2008, at a time when the Orphan Works bill looked to be a shoo-in by early summer. Anticipating a quick mopping up operation, the bill's advocates were high-fiving one another. But as James V. DeLong of the Convergence Law Institute reminded them, there was still much work ahead

Calling the Orphan Works bill just "half a loaf," he hinted at what it would take to permit commercial interests to take the whole loaf:

"These possibly-orphan, sort-of-orphan, and gray literature works simply cannot be made available if the digitizers are required to make one-by-one judgments and seek permission before copying. If they are to be retrieved in useful form, then sooner or later Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and some others must be permitted to digitize on a massive scale."

Of course he acknowledged that the new reverse copyright law should not deprive intellectual property owners of their "legitimate rights." But he reaffirmed the Copy Left's fundamental premise that intellectual property owners should not be entitled to legitimate rights except in situations where they've registered their works:

"At some point, some kind of grand grand-fathering proceeding will probably be required, a window in which holders of existing rights must reaffirm them or lose them." (Italics added)

Again, this is the same premise we see at work in the Google book settlement. As Lynn Chu, a principal at Writers Representatives LLC, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009:

"Under the settlement, every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote -- and every excerpt permission ever granted to others -- at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs. This is a massive burden on everyone in the book industry, making us all, in effect, Google's data-entry slaves. Indeed, in most cases such information about every permission ever granted is un-locatable. It opens a Pandora's box of disputes and mistaken claims about who actually owns what." (Italics added)

This is identical to our warning last year about the Orphan Works bill:

"[The Orphan Works bill] would force artists either to entrust their entire life's work to privately owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement. It would let giant image banks access our commercial inventory and metadata - and enter our commercial markets as clearinghouses to compete with us for our own clients. I can think of no other field where small business owners can be pressured to supply potential competitors with their content, business data and client contact information." - Brad Holland, Small Business Administration Roundtable, August 8, 2008

The War on Authors
Both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill have their intellectual rationale in the war on authors that began decades ago in the obscure theories of Post-modern literary critics. Their fundamental premise is that all creativity is communal and that authors are only the agents through which the community creates. This has led a handful of activist legal scholars to demand changes in the law requiring artists, writers and others to affirm and reaffirm the rights to use their own work by, in effect, licensing it from the public "commons."

This argument, Marxist in its origins, has found its unlikely champion in those large commercial Internet interests that hope to build Information Age empires supplying businesses and the public with creative "content." By defining millions of works as orphans on the premise that some might be, both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill would allow these opportunists to profit by harvesting the work of others, providing their databases with content they could never afford to create themselves nor license from authors.

Next: Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement /Part III: Compelling Arguments
The Register of the US Copyright Office has condemned the Google settlement in terms nearly identical to our condemnation last year of the Orphan Works bill. In Part III, we'll examine those similarities to see the patterns that are emerging from this insidious effort to change copyright law.

Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
______________________________________________________________

For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog

Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.

Please post or forward this message to any interested party.

I hope you guys are seeing where all this is heading.

Big Business stands to make millions out of the work of artists and such legislation opens up the sores that we call piracy, plagiarism, theft and any number of other names, but they all amount to the same, misuse.

It’s like they say; power corrupts, absolute power corrupts, absolutely!!!

I hope the US Senate makes the right decisions here, but somehow I fear the worst may happen, when such large figures of money are being quoted.

I also hope that when the time comes enough of us make a noise to make a difference.

I will post more here, as the news comes in.

Until next time have fun!

Tim Perkins…
October 1st 2009