Does this man possess the most dangerous legal mind on the planet? If you create images, sounds, prose or objects for a living you might just be inclined to think so.

According to the Illustrators' Partnership of America's Brad Holland, Jaszi, his colleagues and students are the authors behind a bill currently before the United States Congress and Senate, attempting- not for the first time- to address the problem of "orphan works". These are pieces of intellectual property that, for one reason or another, cannot be attributed to a copyright holder. Therefore they are often unused (particularly in research and education) for fear of infringing upon the rights of some unknown party. No one wants to find themselves liable for misuse of a photo that it later turns out belongs to Paul Getty.

Many American creatives contend that this bill, if enacted as law, will remove the inherent, immediate and exclusive copyright protection from all intellectual property. In-principle protection from infringement will no longer apply from the moment of creation; instead, any and all work will have to be registered with corporate-ran databases at an as yet unknown cost. Of course, this penalises the individual artist who is least able to pay (average earnings for a visual artist in Scotland: £4-5,000) and benefits aggressive and unscrupulous corporate raiders of a mind to gather and misuse any unregistered photos, drawings, music, films, stories or essays. Of course, a cheaper alternative would be to not put work in harm's way by disseminating it; in other words, don't have a career. The article above asks whether this bill amounts to a violation of international law. If it does, it'd hardly be the first time the US's conduct flew in the face of the world's judgement, but even if it it doesn't it remains a signal violation of creative rights.

The IPA has prepared a document that explains why this development should be of concern to creative people globally, as the new law would make it just as easy for an American-based crook to "orphan" a European, African, Asian or South American artist's work as a domestic's. In the age of the blogosphere, anyone or everyone with a mildly creative bent is spewing pretty much every idea they have into the public domain with little or no understanding of where they stand legally. Thankfully, there currently exist rules that govern the use of such material, but it appears this legislation could drive a hole right through the middle of the statute book.

Therefore I encourage you to read, but more importantly print, sign and send this letter to the relevant parties and tell everyone you know about it too.

Does an elephant know it's an elephant?
Does it know what an elephant looks like?
Does it know that other elephants are elephants?
Does it equate the other elephants it sees to the concept of "an elephant" and also to its own self-image?
Can it understand a two-dimensional representation of a three dimensional object?
Can it make decisions with regard to what are and are not the essential anatomical features of an elephant?
Can it make the necessary intuitive leaps to render those features as linear figures?
Does it see in full colour?
Does it make imaginary flights in its mind involving the distortion of spatial relationships and relative scale of objects?
Does it want to express these imaginings to human beings and does it comprehend that human beings have minds capable of interpreting that expression?
And finally, does it derive pleasure from the process?
Because the answer to all those questions has to be "yes" before this can be considered as anything other than as charmless and disturbing a sight as the self-same animal performing in a conga line or teetering atop a giant ball, and I dread to think what methods were used in order to have the beast do it.

With polling day in the Scottish Elections a fortnight off, let's look at what the various parties have to say about the arts, shall we? Oh, go on, it'll be fun...

Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party
• Merge budgets of Scottish Enterprise and Highland & Island Enterprise.
• New Scottish skills agency for better and more available workforce for Scottish Business.
• See that arts bodies are free from state interference.
• Note the relationship between culture and tourism.
Pretty weak sauce from a pretty weak party. If the Tories are ever going to get a toe-hold back in Scottish politics, they need to divorce the main Conservative party and reinvent themselves as a one that can reclaim the right-of-centre vote from neo-Nazis and bible-thumpers sneaking their way onto council backbenches.

Scottish Green Party
• Cherish culture that empowers people and strengthens communities.
• Arms-length arts funding to be preserved.
• Arts experts, not politicians, to determine arts policy.
• Encourage provision of workshop/studio spaces and increase training.
• Add cultural & social remit to Scottish Enterprise.
• Press Westminster for more broadcasting powers.
• Will ensure that grant-receiving bodies adhere to national standards for artists.
• Conduct audit of libraries.
• Support and enhance Gaelic and Scots language.
Better, but as you'd expect this isn't an area in which the Greens are making their big proposals. However, depending on how the election goes, the Greens and SSP (more on them later) could be crucial in terms of majority-forming.

Scottish Labour Party
• Will introduce a Culture Bill that will deliver Cultural Entitlements.
• Culture to become an integral part within education.
• More public art in partnership with private sector.
• Want artist in residence within regeneration of cities.
• Public art Landmark on the A74 entry to Scotland.
• Display ‘art in storage’ within community.
• Will utilise 2009 year of Homecoming to raise profile of artists.
• Art Futures fund for arts graduates to work in community.
• Will continue to make new funds available including to local authorities.
• Promoting excellence and participation.
• Will ‘incentivise’ new artistic work by new commissioning and acquisitions funds.
• Will support artist through national agencies.
• Will support Gaelic & Scots and British sign language.
I've no more to say about the Culture Bill, except I don't want to see it become law. Whether it does depends on Labour being one of the parties in power after the 3rd, and indeed Wee Jack being Labour's leader. This thing's very much his baby and I wouldn't be surprised that if he steps down (which he almost certainly will if Labout take the kicking we're all expecting) his successor won't feel beholden to it.
Last night I was speaking to a couple of English artists who moved up here a fortnight ago, and they where asking me about who to go to for funding. I had to tell them, genuinely, that I had no idea. All bets are off. If Labour are in government next month we'll be looking at an unknown quantity in the shape of the Creative Scotland superquango. If not, who knows? Would the Nats bring back the Scottish Arts Council, or come up with something else again? And in Glasgow, the (Labour) council have deferred all responsibility for cultural provision to a charitable trust, the fifteenth local authority in Scotland to do so. Yet another unknown element.

Scottish Liberal Democrats
• Artists must be free to create.
• Education should give experience of music arts & drama.
• The arts to be free from Government interference and bureaucracy.
• Ensure high-level investment for arts & from local authorities.
• Must support economic and grassroots.
• Give Creative Scotland more scope to build on success of Scottish screen/also contemporary music.
• Creative Scotland should advise the Government on its need not the other way round.
• Creative Scotland should develop cultural hubs.
• Will continue to support National companies directly.
So, both a dig at their partner's Culture Bill with the points on freedom and "interference" (echoed by the Tories, Greens, Nats, and SSP) and a commitment to the Creative Scotland agency it proposes.
No party has disappointed me more than the LibDems this year, most especially on their (apparent) refusal to budge on an independence referendum which makes coallition with the SNP virtually impossible. Maybe they'll soften come the day, but this "the election is a referendum" line doesn't wash while there's more than one party that're for an end to the Union. I'd have thought a party with the word "democrat" in their name would have been more amenable. Ho hum.

Scottish National Party
• Will support and invest in creative sector in order to stimulate artistic output.
• Will implement tax exemption for Scottish artists on sale of work up to £15,000. Prior to fiscal independence in Scotland, a grant scheme will operate to allow this to be reclaimed.
• Three new forms of arts funding: 1. Equity stake (loan with some repayment at later stage). 2. Flexible loans. 3. Grants
• Possible film tax benefits.
• New Culture Bill to ensure arts are free to reach potential.
• Utterly opposed to direct Government intervention in arts.
• Establish Edinburgh Festivals Expo fund.
• Encourage arts at international level.
• Scottish Winter festival linking St Andrew's Day, Hogmanay and Burns Night.
Oh, god... I'll have to wade through another Culture Bill?!
As usual, it's the Nats who are grabbing the lion's share of the press this year. Their tax exemption plan inevitably brought them great publicity last week, attracting as it did the endorsement of Irvine Welsh. Unfortunately it's been badly reported in some quarters, and hasn't been particularly well-explained on the hustings, to the extent that some artists think they'll be entitled to £15k's worth of income under the SNP, which ain't exactly the same thing.
Even if the party do as well as the polls say they will (and the Nats always loose the switherers, come the day), they won't have a majority and will have to form a coallition that seems likely to include the Greens, socialist parties and independents too (Margo MacDonald sat on the same side of the house as Alex Salmond? Who'd have thunk?).
There's also the quandry facing those who've been attracted by the SNP's apparently pro-artist stance but who really, really rather wouldn't see the UK spilt. English-born, or wedded to English partners... Maybe just working in England on a regular basis. I think the SNP consistently underestimate the number of people who live here and truly feel British. Not in a repellent, flag wearing, "No Surrender" way, just a quiet sense of identity with the shared heritage of these islands.

Scottish Socialist Party
• Free access to galleries etc.
• Revitalise Gaelic & Scots language.
• Encourage ethnic culture.
• Broadcasting responsibility to Scottish parliament.
• National film studio.
• National project to transform drab towns.
• Replace SAC with a more open, democratic and representative body.
• Invest in Community Arts.
• Double arts budget.
I'd like to see the SSP make some headway this year but I feel their vote will be split by the cult of personality around Tommy Sheridan as he, his mother and sister and for all I know dog and postie too all stand as Solidarity candidates. It's been depressing to see the only left wing party with seats in Scottish government conform to the "Peoples Front of Judea" stereotype and fall to bits in the last year. Colin Fox has done a fairly good job of leading in the betanned one's stead, but I'm afraid that amid financial worries and a lingering perception of treachery the shine's gone off them.

At least I'll be able to actually vote for someone I want this year. My Westminster MP is Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House, and it's apparently "good form" (but not very democratic) for the main parties to field no opposition in his constituency. So come the day in 2005 I was confronted with a paper made up of one incumbent Labour MP and a raft of fringe lunatics.