Thursday, May 02, 2013

The ERR Bill, in more detail.



Following my article on the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill (ERR) on Tuesday, the AOI spent a day pulling together as much information as possible about it, and its legal implications for illustrations.

Where my article served as a call-to-arms (the equivalent of an emergency briefing by megaphone) and dealt with a series of slowly-emerging indicators that something like this was imminent, along with personal experiences and with the potential consequences of infringement 'at the coalface', the AOI's will give you a technical point-by-point breakdown of the Act in full along with some chapters on their previous involvements in instances where copyright legislation is threatened with change or compromise.

I'm glad to have brought this to so many people's attention and am relieved to see the AOI examining this in detail. Three members of staff spent well over a day putting the feature together so I strongly recommend you read it. The AOI exist, after all, to inform us of and expand upon such legislation, and to advance and protect illustrators' rights. Take some time out with your cup of tea and biscuit later to absorb their their efforts.

Meanwhile I'll be gathering together some of the tips and ideas shared in the hours following my original post which deal with things like metadata, embedded ownership information and watermarking. Thanks to everyone who contributed! Tuesday was a great day for input, shared concerns, swapped ideas, open opinions and the pooling of resources.

Incidentally published above is the image mentioned in my article; tested with Google Image Search, found to be in unauthorised use, and removed from the offending website by a user foggy about her rights, and relying on ignorance and Tumblr for her defence. Try an image of your own - you might be surprised what you find! Simply drag your image to the camera symbol as shown in the screengrab. Large brands have Brand Police (yes that's a real thing) to carry out such vigilant searches on a daily basis, in order to protect their brand, its marks and reputation against inappropriate, damaging or unauthorised mention or use, and this is the closest thing we have in terms of a tool that does anything similar. Try it out!

The best to you all, fellow crayon-wielders! United we stand, and all that.
Mole.

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