By Brad Michael Moore, Artist (formally of Dallas, TX USA - now living in the hard scrabble of Jack County, TX...)
I have been out of touch with my hometown for a long while. It was only through web browsing I came upon Andy Mahler’s most sincere tribute to Edward Fritz. Ned lived a grand and long life. I remember finding Ned Fritz already well defined in his life while I was just a youngster, unafraid to introduce myself to anyone. I read about Ned in the Dallas Morning Newspaper, back in the early 1970’s. The article was about a fuss, locally, over Ned’s back yard. Ned was a sprightly 56 years of age, and I was a 21-year-old professional photographer – native to Dallas. When we met - we became fast accomplices. I had a eye for natural composition, and Ned was a natural at being a mentor, and teacher. Edward Fritz was always brimming with enthusiasm, and never took defeat as an obstacle – but rather, as just another bump in the road of opportunities one passed to get where one needed to go.
Ned was a light-framed fellow, brilliant and curious, who could size up his competition faster than they could tie their shoelaces. When I first read about Ned, I already had and idea about his steadfastness. I knew some considered him a liberal lawyer just making a fuss over, “cutting the grass.” The issue grew far deeper than that. Ned argued that he would never alter the landscape of his (and wife Genie’s) Homestead from it's "Natural State," just to blend in better with the other neighbor’s yards – long ago raped and manicured to suit their own self images. To look at their yards was to look at air. To look at Ned’s yard was to look at God. Ned allowed the environmental flora growing upon the land of his homestead to do as nature would choose to do… Ned was just a Ward - keeping an eye on all things natural. The Fritz’s home was backed up to a creek in a greenbelt area running just of south of Northwest Highway, near Midway Road - smack-dab in the middle of Dallas, Texas.
Ned allowed my unannounced visit to his home one morning and introduced me to his wife, Genie, who was going off to play tennis. The first glimpse I noticed, coming into the house, were lots of glass windows in the back walls, and lots of organized stacks of newspapers, magazines, papers, and more papers on the floors around his desks, cabinets, and such. At that time, I wanted to concentrate on improving my skills as a nature photographer, and I hoped Ned would have some suggestions. Ned told me he could not offer me much over the art of nature photography, but he could show me a lot about nature, and in that knowledge – I could benefit. In fact, as it turned out, Ned was always in need of photo ‘foot soldiers’ who could take leave of the big city on short notice, and didn’t mind sleeping under the stars in the great outdoors!
Ned would be spending a lot of time (in the next dozen or so years) traveling, and studying flora and fauna habitats in the Texas wilderness areas, and its National Parks. He knew volumes, but he wanted to better document (and change) a misguided and unnatural logging practice called, “Clearcutting,” and show how it adversely affected biodiversity and the future of our national treasures – the National Parks of America that contained manageable timber stock. Before I left Ned’s house, that day, I was already committed to being one of his ‘go-to guys’ for short-notice trips to the National Parks and wildlife areas in Texas for purposes of photo-documentation. Later, our travels spread out through the eastern sections of North America’s National Wildernesses. Ned already had a working plan – a call to action to protect our woods. His work had only begun.
As time went by, Ned and I sojourned throughout east and southeastern Texas, visiting public and private lands, holding unique natural habitats and damaged landscapes. I would sometimes complain to Ned, "You always call me to take the ‘worse’ pictures in nature,” meaning the ones depicting abuses to our national treasures – pubic lands covered with ruinations rained down upon them through government contracts given to private companies by our National Forest Supervisors – ‘Wards’ of our great national resources. Contracts were dealt at cut-rate prices to the paper and lumber industries – many using the worst practices of Clearcutting, and road building procedures, which were as bad as it gets when meaning to destroy natural habitats - preparing for their replacement with monocultured scapes – unfriendly to animals, flora diversity – and even water quality. So, I rarely ever photographed the good stuff – but instead, documented the horrors of terrible land management practices and the scars they left behind… “This is the important stuff people need to see,” Ned would always say. For that – there was no greater truth, or sensible counter-argument. Knowing this, “Truth,” was often my only comfort – during many a sultry mid-summer night’s resting under the stars (while being feasting upon by mosquitoes).
I loved making a positive mark upon the slow swing of progress - in saving our forests, and their wildlife and flora… I detested that it often times seemed such a painful endeavor though, requiring so much devolution and attention. I also took pleasure in the fortune of being that cog in the wheel - its veer rolled towards a potentially better future for generations to come – a future allowing new generations a chance to experience something as near to pristine as we have known. Though I was only in my twenties, I came to see that, “This Hard Work,” would reflect the true value of ours and many other like-minded people’s efforts, and it would be effort worthwhile (even if never-ending).
A few light moments… Once Ned and I were crossing a stream, and he stopped, as he was constantly prone to do, and pointed to a little whitish & pale green two-leaf sprout at a stream's edge and shouted, "Trout Lilly!" It seemed so small and insignificant – just another clue the wonder of Natural Biodiversity. Ned could see a grain of sand inside a needle – if he were to pass it. Another time I lagged behind Ned and walked (fell) into a sinkhole – landing still standing upright! I photographed the exit – just a bit out of reach, while I waited for Ned to notice me missing, back trace his steps, find me, and help me out. Later that day, Ned showed me a fern that was sensitive to the human touch - I touched it - it rolled up and folded over. After a while, it reopened! I touched it again - and this time it closed for the foreseeable future – no fooling it more than twice! There are so many treasures at our feet – Ned Fritz helped teach me that lesson, and it was but one of his gifts I still use everyday – so many a small treasure I have found under foot since!
I was very honored in the mid 1980’s when Ned asked me to help him illustrate his next book - to be titled, “Clearcutting: A Crime Against Nature,” published by Eakin Press. Ned had a friend, pilot Charles Johnson, who flew a single engine Cessna. It would be a great tool in our travels – to fly so close to the ground you could almost imagine awakening a sleepy Earth. With me in the backseat with my cameras, and Ned riding shotgun, Charles flew us all about the eastern United States. We stopped and visited every National Forest we could find, and met with, and often took shelter with fellow activists and other protectors of our nation’s natural heritages (that is how I met Andy and Linda Mahler). Starting from Texas, we headed to Florida, and then up the Eastern Seaboard to Washington D.C. - where we stopped for Ned to do some lobbying (I walked from the steps of Capitol Hill to Arlington Cemetery one day). Then we flew west from Maryland to Indiana - before headed back south and home with 20-something new notches in our wilderness belts. It was a nearly month-long journey.
I have been thinking of another great gift Ned left for me to muse over… When my friend passed away – I was the same age as he was - the first day we met. It inspires me to imagine over all that he accomplished - after many others would have begun considering their retirement! Ned’s life shows me proofs that there are still many more miles to go before I rest, and so many dreams yet to explore, and gifts to find and give away to others…
White House Seeks Artists' Comments to Improve Copyright Protection
3.18.10
New Copyright Czar begins Joint Strategic Plan to Protect Intellectual Property Victoria Espinel is the first U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), also known as the Copyright Czar. Congress created IPEC by an Act of Congress. Ms. Espinel serves within the Executive Office of the President to coordinate with all the federal agencies that fight the infringement of intellectual property. Ms. Espinel and her team are specifically tasked with formulating and implementing a Joint Strategic Plan to help protect the ingenuity and creativity of Americans by improving the U.S. Government's protection of the rights of intellectual property owners.
Your input is requested. The White House is inviting your public input and participation to shape an effective intellectual property enforcement strategy. Please respond with your written submissions regarding the costs to you, your business and the U.S. economy resulting from infringement of your intellectual property rights, both direct and indirect.
This will be a 2-part process. The first is to gather public recommendations by March 24. IPEC will then gather your input on the formulated plan. Please be precise. Include your name, city, state, and what type of artist you are. Explain why copyright is critical to you as a commercial artist, how infringement affects you, and what the U.S. government can do to better protect the rights of American artists. If your submission is about your economic loss due to infringement of your copyrights you must clearly identify the methodology used to calculate your losses or otherwise validate your infringement and enforcement costs.
Your submission will be publicly posted. For this reason, please do not include in your comments information of a confidential nature, such as sensitive personal information or proprietary information.
Confidential disclosures. If you have confidential business information that would support your recommendation or that you believe would help the Government formulate an effective enforcement strategy, please let them know by contacting:
Thomas L. Stoll Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (202) 395-1808
Deadline: Submissions must be received by Wednesday, March 24, 2010, at 5 p.m. EST. Address: All submissions should be sent electronically via intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov
Additional Background Reading: White House Blog Federal Register Notice Request
- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
For news and information, and an archive of these messages: Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/
Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.
If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP
Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part I
9.25.09
We've been asked for news about the Orphan Works bill. Last June Intellectual Property Watch warned that it would be back during the summer. And on June 11th, Senator Orrin Hatch confirmed his intent to reintroduce the bill. We immediately put out a notice to artists. But summer's over and we've had no further news. So far, so good.
Of course Congress has had other priorities: the ongoing financial mess, the health care debate and - on the copyright front - the Google book search controversy. For those who haven't followed the news about this Google assault on copyright, we'll try to summarize it.
The World's Largest Library (Or is it Bookstore?) In 2004, Google announced its intent to digitize all of the world's 80-100 million books - and to make most of them commercially available as orphaned works. The plan has been controversial since its inception.
Google began with the cooperation of several major libraries. The libraries gave Google access to their holdings. The problem is that libraries are libraries; they don't own the copyrights to the books they hold. In short, they gave Google the rights to other people's work. So far, Google has scanned over 10 million books.
In 2004, the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers sued Google for copyright infringement. Last October the parties settled. The resulting agreement is 141 pages long, with 15 appendices of 179 pages. The implications for copyright holders are not clear, but what the litigants would get is breathtaking. As Lynn Chu, a principal at Writers Representatives LLC, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009:
"[I]f approved by the federal court, [it would] permit Google to post out-of-print books for reading, sales, institutional licensing, ad sales, and other publishing exploitations, by Google, online. The settlement gives the class-action attorneys $30 million; a new, quasi-judicial bureaucracy called the Book Rights Registry $35 million...and $45 million for owners infringed up to now -- about $60 a title." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123819841868261921.html
Google would keep just over a third of the profits generated by selling these books online. The rest would go to the Book Rights Registry run by publishers' and authors' representatives. In other words, 63% would go to the parties that sued Google. In theory, the Registry would attempt to locate the authors of orphaned works and pay them royalties. But as Ms. Chu points out, the parties that sued Google - and would therefore benefit from Google's infringement - have themselves traded away other people's rights in the bargain:
"No one elected these 'class representatives' to represent America's tens of thousands of authors and publishers to convey their digital rights to Google. Nor are the interests of this so-called class identical."
The US Department of Justice apparently agrees. Last Friday, it filed an objection to the settlement and advised the court to reject the settlement as written. On page 9 of their brief, the DOJ attorneys write:
"The structure of the Proposed Settlement itself, therefore, pits the interests of one part of the class (known rightsholders) against the interests of another part of the class (orphan works rightsholders). Google's commercial use of orphan works will generate revenues, which will be deposited with the Registry. Any unclaimed revenues, however, will inure to the benefit of the Registry and its registered rightsholders. Thus, the Registry and its registered rightsholders will benefit at the expense of every rightsholder who fails to come forward to claim profits from Google's commercial use of his or her work...
"The greater the economic exploitation of the works of unknown rightsholders by Google and the Registry, the stronger the incentive for known rightsholders to retain the unclaimed revenues for themselves." [Emphasis added]
The US federal court was scheduled to hold a fairness hearing October 7. But over 400 objections from around the world have been filed by rightsholders, competitors to Google and (in addition to the US government) the governments of France and Germany. Yesterday we received news that the fairness hearing has been delayed.
The Google settlement has also been condemned by Marybeth Peters, Register of the US Copyright Office. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee last Wednesday, Ms. Peters stated that it would allow Google to "operate under reverse principles of copyright law," adding "it could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come." http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat091009.html
We haven't had much to say about this agreement because, with the notable exception of childrens' book illustrations (which for purposes of the settlement are considered part of the text) the agreement doesn't include visual art. Yet like the Orphan Works bill itself, the Google Book Settlement would be a radical change to copyright law.
Tomorrow we'll examine some of the ways in which this settlement parallels the Orphan Works bill.
- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part II
9.29.09
A Reversal of Copyright Law
Last Friday we summarized the basic details of the Google Book Search Settlement. Like the visual arts "databases" we opposed last year, this agreement would allow both Google and a yet-to-be-created Book Rights Registry to commercially profit from an author's work whenever they say they can't locate the author.
Both schemes would force authors to opt out of commercial operations that infringe their work - or to "protect" their work by opting-in to privately owned databases run by infringers. This Hobson's Choice for authors reverses the principle of copyright law.
The by-product of the Google settlement (again like the Orphan Works bill) would be to establish public access to private property as the default position in copyright law. In other words, it presumes:
a.) that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right, b.) that it's your legal obligation to make your work available, and c.) that if you fail to do so, you forfeit your exclusive right to control access to your work.
If you're an author and you wish to keep the book you write from becoming a potential orphan, you'd therefore have to register it with the Book Rights Registry run by the parties that settled with Google (and who will receive an award of $30 million for cutting themselves in).
Advocates of the deal try to justify it by saying it will make more books available to more people than at any other time in history - a claim that's no doubt true - but therefore they say, as Andrew Albanese writes in Publishers Weekly, "the massive public good of the deal far outweigh[s] the individual greivances [sic] of rightsholders."
Yet it's in this very argument that the danger lies.
Once the Copy Left has established a legal precedent that the property rights of authors can be subordinated to the assertion of public interest, they can build on that principle to enact further statute and case laws to benefit commercial interests. To do this, they'll have to chip away further at the inherent property rights of individuals.
Orphan Works: "Half a Loaf" An example of the agenda that underlies both the Google book search settlement and the Orphan Works bill came in May, 2008, at a time when the Orphan Works bill looked to be a shoo-in by early summer. Anticipating a quick mopping up operation, the bill's advocates were high-fiving one another. But as James V. DeLong of the Convergence Law Institute reminded them, there was still much work ahead.
Calling the Orphan Works bill just "half a loaf," he hinted at what it would take to permit commercial interests to take the whole loaf:
"These possibly-orphan, sort-of-orphan, and gray literature works simply cannot be made available if the digitizers are required to make one-by-one judgments and seek permission before copying. If they are to be retrieved in useful form, then sooner or later Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and some others must be permitted to digitize on a massive scale."
Of course he acknowledged that the new reverse copyright law should not deprive intellectual property owners of their "legitimate rights." But he reaffirmed the Copy Left's fundamental premise that intellectual property owners should not be entitled to legitimate rights except in situations where they've registered their works:
"At some point, some kind of grand grandfathering proceeding will probably be required, a window in which holders of existing rights must reaffirm them or lose them." (Italics added)
Again, this is the same premise we see at work in the Google book settlement. As Lynn Chu, a principal at Writers Representatives LLC, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009:
"Under the settlement, every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote -- and every excerpt permission ever granted to others -- at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs. This is a massive burden on everyone in the book industry, making us all, in effect, Google's data-entry slaves. Indeed, in most cases such information about every permission ever granted is unlocatable. It opens a Pandora's box of disputes and mistaken claims about who actually owns what." (Italics added)
This is identical to our warning last year about the Orphan Works bill:
"[The Orphan Works bill] would force artists either to entrust their entire life's work to privately owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement. It would let giant image banks access our commercial inventory and metadata - and enter our commercial markets as clearinghouses to compete with us for our own clients. I can think of no other field where small business owners can be pressured to supply potential competitors with their content, business data and client contact information." - Brad Holland, Small Business Administration Roundtable, August 8, 2008
The War on Authors Both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill have their intellectual rationale in the war on authors that began decades ago in the obscure theories of Postmodern literary critics. Their fundamental premise is that all creativity is communal and that authors are only the agents through which the community creates. This has led a handful of activist legal scholars to demand changes in the law requiring artists, writers and others to affirm and reaffirm the rights to use their own work by, in effect, licensing it from the public "commons."
This argument, Marxist in its origins, has found its unlikely champion in those large commercial Internet interests that hope to build Information Age empires supplying businesses and the public with creative "content." By defining millions of works as orphans on the premise that some might be, both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill would allow these opportunists to profit by harvesting the work of others, providing their databases with content they could never afford to create themselves nor license from authors.
Next: Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement /Part III: Compelling Arguments The Register of the US Copyright Office has condemned the Google settlement in terms nearly identical to our condemnation last year of the Orphan Works bill. In Part III, we'll examine those similarities to see the patterns that are emerging from this insidious effort to change copyright law.
- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part III
10.2.09
Compelling Arguments
On September 10, 2009, Marybeth Peters, Register of the US Copyright Office, testified before Congress in opposition to the Google Book Search Settlement. Her arguments on behalf of creators rights are compelling and we support them. However, we note with some irony that they are nearly identical to the arguments we made in opposing the Orphan Works bill last year. We don't know what conclusions to draw from this fact, but we think it's fair to draw attention to it.
We've picked several examples below and matched them with quotes from our own writings and testimony. In every case, the emphasis is ours.
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The [Google] settlement is not merely a compromise of existing claims, or an agreement to compensate past copying and snippet display. Rather, it could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: The bill's sponsors say it's merely a small adjustment to copyright law. In fact...its provisions have been drafted so broadly it will orphan the work of working artists. Its consequences will be far reaching, long lasting, perhaps irreversible and will strike at the heart of art itself."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[The Book Rights Registry] is likely to have the unfortunate effect of creating a false database of orphan works, because in practice any work that is not claimed will be deemed an orphan."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "As clients come to rely on these [visual arts] registries as one-stop shopping centers for rights clearance, any works not found in the registries could be infringed as orphans."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Compulsory licenses... are scrutinized very strictly because by their nature they impinge upon the exclusive rights of copyright holders...By its nature, a compulsory license 'is a limited exception to the copyright holder's exclusive right . . . As such, it must be construed narrowly.'"
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[The Orphan Works bill] radically abridges the fundamental principal of exclusive rights granted to creators under the copyright law, and creates a sweeping compulsory license permitting large scale unauthorized use of not only older works, the provenance of which may be difficult to determine, but also of the valuable contemporary works that are the economic life blood of those in our profession."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Compulsory licenses are generally adopted by Congress only reluctantly, in the face of a marketplace failure."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The Copyright Office only received about 215 relevant letters to their Orphan Works Study. From this they deduced a claim of widespread market failure in commercial markets..." " But the Copyright Office studied the specific subject of orphaned work. They did not inquire about the workings of commercial markets and there is no evidence in their report that business clients are unable to find the living authors they wish to work with. No evidence whatsoever."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "In summary, the out-of-print default rules would allow Google to operate under reverse principles of copyright law..."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[The Orphan Works bill] creates the public's right to use private property as a default position, available to anyone whenever the property owner fails to make himself sufficiently available." "[I]ts logic reverses copyright law."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "In essence, the proposed settlement would give Google a license to infringe first and ask questions later..."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "Since orphan works transactions would occur only after infringement, the rights holder would have no leverage to bargain for more than the infringer is willing or able to pay."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[C]opyright law has always left it to the copyright owner to determine whether and how an out-of-print work should be exploited."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "Under copyright law, no author can be compelled to publish his or her work. So by what right of eminent domain can Congress give strangers the right to publish our work without our knowledge, consent or payment?"
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The broad scope of the out-of-print provisions and the large class of copyright owners they would affect will dramatically impinge on the exclusive rights of authors, publishers, their heirs and successors."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The fundamental problem with the Orphan Works Act is that it's been drafted so broadly its use cannot be confined to real orphaned work situations." "To redefine an orphaned work as "a work by an unlocatable author" is to radically re-define the ownership of private property...Since everybody can be hard for somebody to find, this voids a rights holder's exclusive right to his or her own property."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "Some foreign governments have raised questions about the compatibility of the proposed settlement with Article 5 of the Berne convention, which requires that copyright be made available to foreign authors on a no less favorable basis than to domestic authors, and that the "enjoyment and exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "[P]utting pressure on creators to subsidize the creation of privately-owned registries violates the intent of international copyright law, specifically Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention: "The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "The ability of copyright owners and technology companies to share advertising revenue and other potential income streams is a worthy and symbiotic business goal that makes a lot of sense when the terms are mutually determined. And the increased abilities of libraries to offer on-line access to books and other copyrighted works is a development that is both necessary and possible in the digital age. However, none of these possibilities should require Google to have immediate, unfettered, and risk-free access to the copyrighted works of other people. They are not a reason to throw out fundamental copyright principles; they are a pretext to do so."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "The internet has created a culture of appropriation; and immediate global access to artistic works has facilitated piracy, unintentional infringement and plagiary. But instant and unrestricted access to work should not be construed as a necessity just because technology has made it a possibility. That an artist's work now can be instantly transmitted around the world without the artist's permission or control does not justify a user's 'right' to take the work."
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: "[T]he settlement would inappropriately interfere with the on-going efforts of Congress to enact orphan works legislation in a manner that takes into account the concerns of all stakeholders as well as the United States' international obligations."
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: "This bill has been drafted behind closed doors, without a needs-assessment study, an economic impact analysis, or an evaluation of how the public would be affected by this transfer of private property from individuals to giant commercial databases...For artists, the most troubling part has been our near-total exclusion from the legislative process."
"On July 11th [2008], on behalf of all those who oppose this bill, [we] submitted Amendments to the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. Those Amendments would make this bill a true orphan works bill. The Amendments have never been considered...This is no way to re-write U.S. copyright law."
Q.E.D.
The Register's full testimony from September 10, 2009 can be found here. Our comments have been excerpted from various articles posted in 2008 on the IPA Orphan Works blog.
- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership
For news and information, and an archive of these messages: Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog
Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.
If you received our mail as a forwarded message and wish to subscribe to the IPA mailing alerts, click on the link below, "Join Our Mailing List" and follow the simple directions on the webpage.
Please post or forward this message to any interested party.
