If the Orphaned Works bill gets passed, the only real change is that people would have to make sure that their ownership of their work could be discovered through a "reasonable search". This simply reinforces a practice which most artists already use.


A little history:
When I first started getting into the art scene I saw a lot of people hiding behind aliases. No one wanted to use their real names on the internet in fear that they might, I don't know, get crazy stalkers looking them up in the phone book or something. It was really stupid. This was around the time when I was signing my pieces with some ridiculous looking monogram.

Once people started to take notice of my work I realized that the worst thing I could do for my career was to disconnect myself from my art. I wasn't trying to hide anything, I was trying to get found by people who wanted to pay me money! Constantly shifting aliases and enigmatic signatures were making it harder for people to realize which pieces were mine.
<END HISTORY LESSON>

When someone sees my work on the net or in person, I want them to have an easy time finding out where it came from. I want them to connect as few dots as possible to my complete portfolio and my contact info. This is the primary reason I started signing all my pieces in block lettering. The other reason, is that my real signature looks like butt.

These days, if someone wants to find me they can google search: any of my aliases, my E-mail, my last name, my full name or the name of most of my pieces. Through any of these searches you can find my name, location, multiple meathods of contact, my portfolio and my resume.

If anyone ever steals some of my art, they can never claim that the piece they took was "Orphaned". Even if they did steal my art, what would that accomplish? Are they really going to make more money off of it than me? The real worth of a working artist is not in a bunch of 'jpg's. It's in their brain.

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Basics of Painting:[link]
Deleting the White: [link]
Applying Texture:[link]
Painting Demo 1:[link]
Painting Demo 2:[link]