It seems congress is intent on passing a bill that will allow anyone who grabs an image off the internet to claim it as their own and sell it if they have made a "good faith" effort to find out who the copyright holder is. The current law basically says that if you publish an image, and that includes posting it on the internet, say here on tribe, you own the copyright and that is proof. You can go after a company that snags your image and uses it in advertising. You might not win very much unless you also send the images in to the copyright office, but the law is definitely on your side. With this new law, from what I've been able to understand, the burden of proof is now much much harder on the original image creator and much easier for the thief to claim they couldn't find you, and so be absolved of any wrong doing.

In other words, if you are an advertising agency, instead of hiring an artist to create the image you need, you hire someone to surf the internet for a suitable image and you get to cut your art budget a bunch.

If you think this might not be in the best interest of art and artists, here's a link to a page where you can let your congress people know you don't like this idea: capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/