WASHINGTON, D.C.— Members of the visual arts community and representatives from independent record labels have voiced strong criticisms of the orphan works bills recent approved by Senate and House Judiciary subcommittees, the Washington Internet Daily reports. Around 30 visual artists visited politicians' offices in Washington last week to protest the bills, and the American Association of Independent Music has published a position paper.

The visual artists noted that their works often appear online as orphans, in that many of them have been used and posted on the Internet without authorization or attribution. Brad Holland, the founder of the Illustrators' Partnership of America, said that the bill's system of requiring artists to register their work in Copyright Office-certified databases favors Google, Getty, Corbis, and other big commercial aggregators. Artists would have to pay high costs to register their work, he said, and would hesitate to give Google and other companies hi-res versions of their work.

In its position paper, the American Association of Independent Music noted that the bills lack limits on what an orphan work user can do with a work after completing the requisite search. Also, since users do not need to publicize their intent to use a work, the paper asked: "how would the copyright owner ever know the infringement has occurred?" The association voiced further concern that text-based searches will not work for music, and a music industry executive said that the bill is "de facto...establishing a new compulsory license," which might violate a number of international treaties that the U.S. has signed, by putting unregistered artists at a legal disadvantage in court.