Clause 43 of the Digital Economy Bill legitimises unauthorised use where creator/rights holder can't be found, to be exact, thus it's not saying it's fair game for a free for all 'all you can eat' content dinner, but I feel it is the thin end of a wedge I would rather not see. If I can mix my metaphors like that!

Post Digital Economy Bill Clause 43: Copyright still exists but not as an exclusive property right, controllable by the creator or right holder as before. Collecting societies – we can guess who would want to set those up will get to set rate and conditions on works as long as a 'diligent search' has been made and the work has been subsequently registered. This has been defined but is still open to lots of interpretation and no-one has come up with a way of making this truly workable for visual works, whether in the initial search or the register – a register where no textual info pertaining to the author can be produced.

Any authorisation could override an existing, possibly exclusive, contract be it between photographer and model, rights holder and licencee. Who is deemed at fault then? Who can sue whom? It will vastly impact the reputation and good standing, and bank balance of any professional.

Even if the powers that be determine it's not for 'commercial photography' then how would one define that? Photography can become commercial not just in its conception but also simply in its use. Thus an amateur can take a snap and find it used in a way they would find offensive c.f. shark fin soup above.

UK government has said it will consult, but after successive rounds of what they call consultation, going back several years, with hardly a shred of evidence that they have ever listened to visual content creators, especially photographers, I very much doubt this will be anything other than a lip-service exercise by them.

This is why I and others in my profession have been fighting this tooth and nail.

We have also been looking at the wider impact globally and seeing whether or not companies using an orphan works licence under C43 in the UK could open themselves up for legal action in the US for infringement, if it turns out the work was created by a US citizen or rights held by a US company. If that is the case the collecting society could be named in suit in theory too I think.

UK Government through Lord Young seemed to think that, somehow, licences could be restricted territorially, that may be the case for print publishing but is not at all the case for the internet – even restricted live video feeds get routinely circumvented for example.

It is clear they haven't really thought through the ramifications of this new law they want to rush through the elected chamber before election. I and others are lobbying hard so it gets thorough debate or even runs out of time.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by suredoc: New post: Unleashing the Content Harvesters http://www.mkanderson.com/portal/archives/1442...