From C. Turner:

If you had an image on the internet for any period of time, chances are it is permanently archived at the Internet Archive, also know as The Wayback Machine.

Pulling your images off a site now does not pull it off this historical record. Orphan copies will persist at the Internet Archive, unless you take active steps to have them removed.

Brewster Kahle founded the Internet Archive. Kahle and Rick Prelinger of the Prelinger Archives sued the government on the grounds that the Copyright Term Extension Act (also known as the Sonny Bono Act) violated free speech and the First Amendment by changing copyright from opt-in to opt-out. Kahle v. Gonzales was attorney Larry Lessig’s second attempt to overturn passive, automatic copyright protection. He made the same argument in a different form in Kahle that he made before the Supreme Court in Eldred v. Ashcroft. Lessig failed in Kahle as he failed in Eldred.

To see what Kahle has of your past versions of your present website, or previous websites, go to http://www.archive.org/index.php

In the center of the top of the page is the Wayback Machine search box for the 85 billion (and counting) pages that the Internet Archive has crawled and preserved. Put in your site address, and you will see the listings of pages captured from your site and the date each page was captured. You can click on the link and view that page as it looked on that date.

Be mindful that the Internet Archive is an archive, an intended beneficiary of orphan exploitation under H.R. 5889 and S. 2913. However, it is not an archive of old work, but an archive of your work and mine, current up until a few days or weeks ago.

More on Brewster Kahle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Kahle

     I am sure you are all aware that Google has been mining images for the last few years off every corner of the internet and has a HUGE database. Lately I have noticed that they have even been encouraging the public to help them tag images in their database for them.  Evidence: See the GOOGLE IMAGES search where it says: “Want to help improve Google Image Search? Try Google Image Labeler.”

     You may also be aware that if you post using Google’s free blogger software that your images are all  placed in a separate database automatically called Picasa.   Most blogger folks are not aware of Picasa.  If you are aware of the database you can log in using your google ID and change the settings to private and also delete images- but nearly every artist I have talked to had no idea about their “Picasa” account.

The proposed “Registries” have suggested the use of “image recognition software” for those who wish to infringe on and use images to compare to their database to determine if an image has been orphaned. 

Now lets realize exactly what power this has….

   Fact:  Google has been mining millions of images and storing them.

   Google has “Image Recognition” software it can run against the content of the future “Registries” to easily and quickly compare with its own image database filled with images it has mined from across the universe.

   After this “diligent search” quickly and electronically done in the “Registries” they now can easily create a new database with all the images in their collection that are not in the “Registries” and offer an ORPHAN WORKS DATABASE “Superstore” that would have millions perhaps billions of images at the onset that according to OW is orphaned and available.

  I am sure you can all see the huge potential for manufacturers and advertisers to pay $$ for a membership to shop in this database.   With the technology Google has they could run the database through the registries daily and remove art that is in the registries so that the shopper can be assured that a diligent search was done and go right ahead and use the images. In fact just shopping in the Superstore might constitute “diligent search” in itself!

   So the way I see it the issue is NOT that our work “might be considered orphaned”  by someone wandering about the internet- but that it will be intentionally orphaned and actively marketed in an image superstore.  Imagine the income possible!  The registries are mainly in place to

distinguish  ”Orphans” and will pay for themselves off the fees charged to artists.

In my view this changes the picture dramatically.  Many Artists who have convinced themselves that the OW means folks will try to contact them and that this will be easy to do because of their contact information on the internet will be mistaken-

It wont matter if you copyright it

It wont matter if you watermark it

It wont matter if you digitally encrypt it

It wont matter if you have a site and are easy to find

By the letter of the law your work will be orphaned and will be available for sale immediately.

THEY DID NOT CREATE IT! THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO PROFIT FROM IT!