First off on a light note, I know it's super short notice (I wasn't sure if I was still going thanks to the whole breaking myself thing) but are any of you loverly Yorkshire folk off to Thought Bubble this Saturday in Leeds? I'm going along with a few doll friends so if you wanna mooch around with us or just chat about big gay dolls and the like give me a shout ;3

Anyone who's been watching me for any length of time probably knows I can get a bit rabid when it comes to the protection of artist and especially photographer's rights. Be that their right to record the world around them (see [link]) or the right to retain ownership of their own works and I feel it's perfectly justified, what the government is already doing and proposing to do is damaging to our nations visual history as well as potentially its photographic industry.

Here in the UK the ownership of our own work very much looking like it's going to be under threat very soon. Much like the US Orphan's bill our government is looking to effectively 'nationalise' photography by allowing it's use on non-commercial websites free of any form of credit or payment. While this might not sound like such a huge deal it's completely at odds with our governments stand on any other form of copyright, especially music and film and will be potentially damaging to many small businesses and professional photographers.

I'm trying to find more details about the proposed amendment to our copyright law but for now if you're in the UK and you agree that the amendment is wrong and should be reconsidered then please consider signing the official petition linked below.

DA news article here: [link]
number10 petition here: [link]


N.B. I'm not looking to get into 'omg copyright is already dead' debates, been there, done that thanks, so any comments on that tangent will be ignored.