Okay, so reading the actual Law as it’s written in legalese, I even MORE think people on Tumblr are freaking out over nothing. To TL;DR it in human speak, it says along the lines of:
- If you want to make a work based on something you find on the internet (Let’s say a drawing on DA), then you have to TRY and find the copyright holder. Not just a “Google search, do I find them? Nope! This is mine now” but like, a DETECTIVE level search for them.
- This means E-mails, websites they are on, usernames they go by, addresses, phone numbers, the works. You HAVE to TRY and find the Owner of that work.
- Then and ONLY THEN can you file a copyright for it to make it yours.
- BUT IF THEY ARE USING THAT PROPERTY, AND YOU’RE JUST UNDER A DIFFERENT NAME, then you can still file for Infringement because you have been posting the same content and still have full copyright on your work.
- This literally means you have to basically be dead, go completely dark, or not care at all for someone to take a piece of work you posted up and make it their own.
- The other half is about pieces of work that have so many people help make it literally no one knows who has copyright on what.
- Example: Slenderman. 1 guy on a Forum made the original pictures. Marble Hornets then made a popular Youtube series that added to that lore. Slender: The Arrival then made collecting pages popular. Various other people added Proxies, and Symbols, and new characters, etc, etc
- In the case of this, they want to Create an organization where all of those Copyright holders can choose to be a part of it or not, and you all get compensation if someone comes along and decides to use part of your idea.
- Literally no one will be able to just casually steal your ideas or your copyrights and they’re not being ‘flushed down the toilet’ as a popular image is showing.
So yeah, basically as far as I can tell Tumblr is upset over basically nothing. They think the scary legal speak is saying “Gov’munt gonna come and steal mah baby!” when in actuality the new Copyright bill is about giving the people the ability to create projects out of things that either no one cares about/owns anymore anyway, or so many people are part of the project that it’s just easier to split the compensation anyway.
If you have specific examples from the law itself that proves me wrong, then by all means feel free to correct me, but otherwise it’s all just mass hysteria, as per usual on this website.
