Friday, April 11, 2008

ALL ARTISTS PLEASE READ THIS!!!

The most, totally unethical, morally abhorrent thing I have heard in a while...

Hi Guys,

One of my friends over on MySpace, McGee, has just posted a bulletin, which, if the sources are correct, has made such an impact with me and my beliefs that I am posting a Blog here and on the Wizards Keep Blog and also the ComicSpace and FaceBook networks and as many personalised and creative network groups I am in.

The basic premise is this:

Below you will see some links to events in the USA, which could have a major impact on any and every artist on the planet, be they artists, writers, actors, musicians etc, etc.

The Bulletin I have received can be seen below:

The first link will take you to the animation website AWN, where you can read the full details and get further information on this diabolical bill, which according to sources, looks set to be pushed through Congress.

If this happens all creatives may as well give up now as unless you are able to register with multiple registration companies every image you have ever produced, are producing, or will produce, then you will lose all rights to big companies as they are classed as orphan creations.

In other words creative THEFT is being legalised!!!

Copyright has given some protection to artists in the past, but with this new bill, if Congress actualises it will mean, unless you are very rich, EVERYTHING you create can potentially be used by anyone and everyone else, for whatever purpose they see fit, without having to pay anything to the artist having originated the work.

Surely this is morally and ethically totally abhorrent to anyone with an ounce of decency!!!???

PLEASE: Read the information and the interviews that can be found below as this is vital to our very existence as creatives!!!

Here are the links as they appeared in the bulletin:

Under the Orphan works, bill you are about to lose your copyright protection.

Congress is trying to pass legislation, making theft of your artwork legal unless we act!

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3605

Listen to the interview!


http://www.sellyourtvconceptnow.com/orphan.html


I would like to thank McGee for posting the initial bulletin in the first place. We need to act and act straight away to make sure this does not reach fruition. When "Yes" album cover artist Roger Dean is cited as being very worried about this, then something needs to be done to prevent it!!!

Until next time have fun!!!

Best Wishes,
Tim...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh & wow, Tim.

Thanks for posting this.
I will be forwarding to several artists I know, as well as directing some readers from drawing boards to this.

I've already printed out the sample letter template (from the second link you put up) so I can write a couple of letters of my own to send to congress.

Tim Perkins said...

Hey Emilio,

Great to hear from you.

Thanks for taking the time to help out.

This is an awful, totally wrong, and unethical Bill being put through Congress in the States and I always thought the US was a Capitalist country, not a Communist one.

Let's hope it gets kicked out, at least in this format.

Best Wishes,
Tim...
;))

Anonymous said...

Hey Tim,

You might get quite a bit of traffic here real soon.

I just posted a link to this blog on the Perhapanauts/Image forum.

Paul Nolan said...

everybody needs to go and read http://maradydd.livejournal.com/374886.html

that link pretty much counters all of the mag.awn link

Tim Perkins said...

Hi Paul

Yes, thanks for that.

I have just been sent this and have read it.

Although it does call into question a lot of the issues, the piece gets it wrong blaming Mark Simon for all the remarks. He wrote the AWN piece, but the interview is with one of the same guys she cites from the Illustrators Partnership.

Now whilst I agree and I heard mark corrected on the the interview on the point about the Bill being already on front of congress, which it clearly isn't, as even the Illustrators Partnership have not seen the new version, Brad Holland is the guy from IP that explains the issues and yet she side steps this fact with the use of the old documentation.

I just hope for all our sakes that the lady in question along with the few others I have heard from with this same viewpoint ARE correct.

But there is generally no smoke without fire...so I am keeping a close eye on the issues.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to make the post.

Great to hear from you and if you hear anything else please feel free to get in touch.

Like I say I hope this is just a storm in a teacup.
;))

Best Wishes,
Tim...
;))