First, here's real usable productive information:

Orphan Works by $lolly
The Orphan Works Act by $realitysquared
Orphan Works by $Moonbeam13
Don't gotta be an orphan! by $FallenRox
U.S. Copyright Office - Orphan Works Study Report
U.S. Copyright Office - Orphan Works Statement


Second, the rant:
Soooo, I got up about an hour ago at 8pm, and as usual the first thing I do after morning business is checking my dA messages. I had about 2 dozens of journals with more or less the same subject and it took me about a minute to figure out it's overblown uninformed drama as usual and how that came about, again.
Let's call it Simple Brainless Social Dynamics:

Popular deviant A comes across a bit of news or information from a more or less legitimate source. They find they don't like what they have read and instead of gathering more information on the subject, popular deviant A goes into emergency panic mode (or 'Brain out of Window' mode) and posts a journal or news article. Now thousands of other deviants who watch popular deviant A follow the exact same pattern, take their journal or news article as the sole and legitimate source of knowledge on the matter, go into emergency panic mode and post the same uninformed journal or news article. Repeat cycle.
Eventually popular deviants B, C, D etc. join the cycle with their own legion of brainless sheep.
The ones who can't even manage to link to their sources just crack me up. Yea, I'm sure I gotta read that if you can't even post a proper URL, genius.
And oh oh, let's not forget the petitions, the freaking ridiculous laughable petitions!

That's usually the formula. It sounds harsh, but the fact that we go though drama that follows exactly this pattern of taking uninformed rants as truth and not even thinking about doing actual research on it and instead going into anarchy mode over and over again justifies that for me.

Now, obviously not everyone is a sheep, and of course there's genuine concern, whether it stems from the uninformed dArama sources or the actual freakin' Orphan Works Act report and statement, if anybody has actually bothered to read that.

But seriously, why do so many of you just follow what the people you look up to say without doing your own brain work? There's nothing worse than blind following. I'm sure I don't have to mention what blind following can lead to.

@kamizu nailed it in his journal with this quote: "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense. "

We have the freaking Internet. We are ON it. Every bit of information you could seek for is right in front of you and around you. Suck it in or get the hell out. But don't be a blind brainless zombie sheep.

Let's be a community of collective intelligence, not collective skull diarrhea.

*goes back to watching K-PAX*

New Kodak Edge Paper!

Print Profits - A reminder

Worldwide Kids - Charity Event

Can you spot something spotty in one of these?

Send me a Note to suggest me art that you think is truly high quality, excellent, outstanding, amazing, finished and polished, from any category, of any subject or theme, from anyone, including yourself. That's the whole drift.