Registry Forum FAQ

[Jason Manley]

This is a place for you to make your very own thread, with all your works. When you upload images to conceptart.org directly, using the attachment manager, you are able to choose categories, sub-categories, genre, and media for your works. You also choose your searchable copyright information and are easily found on the new viewer with a click of a button. http://www.conceptart.org/search/ind...stof&forumid=5

This registry forum is being added to the viewer as we speak. If you already have all your images up on conceptart.org, you will not need a thread here, unless you want all images in one place.

Here is the info on why...and what we are doing.

In an effort to give back and to begin to take on bigger challenges as a community, ConceptArt.Org has been quietly working to solve the pending Orphan Bill (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqBZd0cP5Yc for more information on what we are up against and what we desperately are creating solutions for).

This summer we helped send thousands of emails to the members of the US House and Senate to stop this bill. What did we get in return? Canned email form letters thanking us for sharing our views. The bill drafts went the House and Senate anyway. The artists, professionals, and creative organizations who were trying to protect artist rights were ignored by our government completely. Realizing that even a hundred thousand signatures wont stop the copyright bill, at least that is how it looks from here, I got to thinking what we have to do to solve the problems right here at home.

Artists having to pay to be in searchable registries is problem number one. I believe this will be left to the private companies based on my research into who is supporting this horrible bill and what businesses are opening up. I went in and checked the domain registry to search to see if people were buying the domains (registermyart.com, artregistry.com, etc..etc...) and every one I searched was gone. This was the red flag that began the real push to solve what we are dealing with. The corporate sharks are already preparing to feed it seems.

Since the business world reads the laws and tries to capitalize on the loopholes, it is obvious to me that this would happen. Money is already flowing that direction. My guess is the art registries will launch as soon as the law passes or shortly thereafter, unless some miracle happens. Smart buggers. Imagine the photographers who take five hundred images a day or more...ugh. Artists cannot pay for this service...at least those I know who produce quantities of work...and none should have to.

Anyway, that problem is now solved in low tech fashion here: http://www.conceptart.org/search/ind...stof&forumid=5 ConceptArt.Org has created a search system for locating art and artists, essentially cutting off the paid registry industry before they can even get off the ground. Click the images and find the original thread. Click the artist name and contact them directly. This also keeps these readying companies from acting as middlemen, between the searcher and the artist who they wish to hire. There is no room for that in our business.

I designed and we rebuilt all our databases and set up conceptart.org servers to handle up to 200 terabytes of secure storage. This service is entirely free and is a gift to the community from ConceptArt.Org. It is also nice as you can now browse through the images on the site very quickly. What used to take a week, now takes hours. Released in this viewer are five hundred thousand images. More will be added shortly. When you post on the forums your images go in the copyright search registry we created. It is all automated for you. Just keep doing as you do and at least your work can be found. The watermark will be site wide, and contains the appropriate information. We are working to be sure the older images in the database are accurately marked and you can edit your own copyright info as well.

You can search best of (five star threads) for fun...or from each forum if you click the "forums images" text tab...there are a ton of ways to look for stuff. key wording is in progress. That is the final piece of the basic search tool.

The idea is to simply kick the entire start up registry industry in the nuts before it can even learn to stand up by taking action ourselves.

Anyway...just some thoughts...my vision for where this heads is deeper than this but it should at least help some, i hope. I spoke at length with others involved in putting up the fight for artists rights and there is agreement that we have solved two of the biggest issues.

1. That artists could have to pay for their works to be registered and protected in the US, and there is evidence supporting this.
2. That these companies would then act as middle men between prospective clients searching the databases by requiring the company or person searching to pay them for your information.

Obviously, these problems must not happen.

There are other problems being solved, as related to this bill and this is just a first step in the best defense is a good offense mentality we have here.

Happy New Year too!


Jason

[danlambert]

I think I understand what is going on, but I'm a little unclear as to how this new conceptart thing rectifies the situation. Does this service replace the need to pay and register drawings etc. with another company? I'm sorry if it's blindingly obvious but I'm very tired haha

[davi]

[CGMonkey]

I'm speechless. Awesome initiative.

[Jason Manley]

It potentially eliminates the need for us to register with commercial services seeking monetary gains (unless they name an approved registry in the bill..which I do not believe will happen). We have one of the largest databases of art on the net, and images posted here circulate around the world. We are simply doing what we can to protect them and the artists here. This makes searching all those images very easy. As said, we still have work to do...but CA is one of the places that one would search to find artists nowadays. The bill requires a diligent search and we now have that structure in place, should the bill pass.

Originally Posted by danlambert

I think I understand what is going on, but I'm a little unclear as to how this new conceptart thing rectifies the situation. Does this service replace the need to pay and register drawings etc. with another company? I'm sorry if it's blindingly obvious but I'm very tired haha

[Jason Snair]

I love this place! And I'm especially thankful for what you guys are trying to do.

[Nynthe]

This sounds amazing! All the effort you put in for the community, brilliant.

[arttorney]

This is what I thought you were doing and I am proud of you for doing it.

It effectively cuts the legs from under the draft definitions of an "orphan work" without turning the registration into a quid pro quo capitalist enterprise.

For you kids out there that don't understand my Latin: a work is only an "orphan" if it doesn't have a good home address. Jason has just made CA.org a good home address. Now you won't have to shop in the high rent district.

[Jason Rainville]

Quick question: would creating a thread in this section with a link to my sketchbook (which pretty much has every image I have in recent times) do any good/be more visible, or would my sketchbook thread be enough?

Awesome work by the way, makes me want to buy things to support the site even more

[alesoun]

Brilliant, Jason. They can't be orphan works unless there's no way of finding the copyright owner, and since that is now just a click or two away, there are no excuses. If people like the art, they should pay the artist (or at least ask permission).

There may still be time to beat the Orphan Bill; in fact, something like this just might take the wind out of their sails.....

[lilnebo]

All the guy/ gals who helped at this.....
And Jason

Your amazing
Thank you

[petitemistress]

thank you Jason, thank you everyone at MB, and at CA.
you guys are awesome!

[Asatira]

This is awesome, now that I get it. Definitely a good thing. Thanks so much.

[Sidharth Chaturvedi]

So that's what the big gift was! Really fantastic idea, thanks a ton to Jason and everyone who got it going.

[BuckWeisel]

The threads in the first post are 404'd. Don't know if they're being moved or what. Anyway, this is a fantastic idea and I can't thank everyone involved enough for providing this service.

[TheJester]

Mr Manley, you are the MAN, obviously

I'm sure that as long as there are people like you, companies like Massive Black and communities like Concept Art, concentrating in solidarity, cooperation and well, plain sharing, corporate profit won't take over the last of our breathing air!!!! Thank you so much for royally scr#$%ing the industry!!!!

(growls and raises fist in the air with rude anti-corporate hand signal)


Helluva new year present dude! Next year we 'll settle for cookies!

[Ayem]

Thankyou for this. It's amazing, really it is. I think the fact I can't find any words to say how happy I am for this best expresses my feelings.
The only words that come to mind are 'Those money-hungry bastards'.

[bat]

Excellent idea, thank you for implementing this.

[Texahol]

anyway you could explain this so more ...simple... people can understand this?

I'm having a little trouble connecting the dots here...

is this database basically a future 'go-to' place for the ones looking for the owner of works in question?

[Natzuur-JK]

The Orphan Works Act defines an "orphan work" as any copyrighted work whose author any infringer says he is unable to locate with what the infringer himself decides has been a "reasonably diligent search." In a radical departure from existing copyright law and business practice, the U.S. Copyright Office has proposed that Congress grant such infringers freedom to ignore the rights of the author and use the work for any purpose, including commercial usage. In the case of visual art, the word "author" means "artist."

Basicly by creating a very easy to use database for finding the artist, and one so large, there should be no excuse by anyone to say that they found a pic of any artist on here, and could not find the source... which makes it a lawful to use that work for... anything.

[Natzuur-JK]

Also, just as a suggestion to everyone, you should be putting at least your name on your works (should be doing it anyway), not that hard.

[DARAF]

Fight The Power!!!!! Long Live CA

[Samuel Gray]

Thank you conceptart and Jason for doing this. I really do appreciate the hard work and inspiration that flows through this place.

[Hexokinase]

Originally Posted by BuckWeisel

The threads in the first post are 404'd. Don't know if they're being moved or what.

They are 404'ing on me as well. This link should work though:
http://www.conceptart.org/search/
The first and third links in Jason's first post would take you to images posted by Jason Manley (which included work by MB as a whole).


Once everything's archived, this will be a great way to browse work posted by artists that receive a lot of sketchbook traffic. You can instantly find every image ever posted by any artist.

[Jason Manley]

Originally Posted by Chagan

So that's what the big gift was! Really fantastic idea, thanks a ton to Jason and everyone who got it going.

I will check on this. If you wait a few minutes or refresh it should work fine. The servers are getting the stress test right now.

[Jason Manley]

Originally Posted by Havoc-DM

They are 404'ing on me as well. This link should work though:
http://www.conceptart.org/search/
The first and third links in Jason's first post would take you to images posted by Jason Manley (which included work by MB as a whole).


Once everything's archived, this will be a great way to browse work posted by artists that receive a lot of sketchbook traffic. You can instantly find every image ever posted by any artist.

That first link is just to the best of the finished section (five star threads)...the book images just happened to be the most recent thread...one of them anyway. Tomorrow someone else will be there.

[shamandalie]

Thank you so much, people of CA!

[Earendil]

Jason, and all the folks at MB, you continue to amaze, inspire, and bless the art world.

Thank you!

[The Original [E]]

So now ConceptArt.org is a free art registry? That's awesome. The only problem that I can think of is that companies may still steal our stuff, all they have to do is claim that they looked on other art registry sites and didn't find our stuff. This bill is really fucked up...

[Jason Manley]

unscrupulous types using just one art registry would not be a diligent search...or reasonable search. ConceptArt.Org is already a prime spot for searching images. Now it is just easy to do so. Once the rest of the databases are added the quality of content within this site makes it a leading registry from the get go. Even if the bill does not pass, which is unlikely, it will still be a great place to find artists and view art...as well as all the rest.