Orphan Works: Legislation by Misdirection 9.29.08 The architects of the Orphan Works Act have already placed testaments to the bill on their websites: Senator Leahy: http://leahy.senate.gov/ Senator Hatch: http://tinyurl.com/3jsq5o They say this "landmark intellectual property bill" will "unlock proverbial attics of copyrighted works" whose owners can't be found. Is that really what all the fuss has been about? No. If that were the case, the problems could be solved with a modest expansion of Fair Use. It's not proverbial closets we fear seeing unlocked. It's our commercial inventories, which would be exposed to potential infringement. And while one Senator pointedly writes that the bill "does not dramatically restructure copyright law" (emphasis added), he's right: it doesn't "restructure" it. It merely redefines an orphaned work so broadly that it would let users infringe millions of works as orphans on the premise that some might be. And why, if the bill is only meant to benefit libraries and museums, have the doors been opened wide for commercial usage? A Fundamental Change to Copyright Law For us, the saddest of these postings is on the Copyright Office website itself. http://www.copyright.gov/ But that's not the sad part. There are orphans. She's entitled to her belief. And as Register of Copyrights, she's entitled to lobby for a change in the law. But what's sad is that the Register, who we've respected for years as an advocate for creators rights, has chosen to justify this legislative scheme by mischaracterizing the honest objections that creators have raised in good faith, again and again. Here's how she summarizes the objections of the hundreds of thousands of artists, writers, photographers and musicians who oppose this bill: "Some critics [she writes] believe that the legislation is unfair because it will deprive copyright owners of injunctive relief, statutory damages, and actual damages. I do not agree." Well, those are all real issues, but they've never been our focus. We've made our case clearly, simply and often. Our objection goes to the heart of the matter. Here it is, as one of us expressed it in his opening statement at the Small Business Administration Roundtable, August 8: "The bill's sponsors say it's merely a small adjustment to copyright law. In fact, its logic reverses copyright law. It presumes that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right and that it's your obligation to make your work available. If this bill passes, in the United States, copyright will no longer be the exclusive right of the copyright holder." - From "Orphan Works: A Hobson's Choice for Artists," by Brad Holland August 8 2008 And in case the point needed elaboration: "This exclusive right matters to artists for three reasons: · Creative control: No one can change your work without your permission; · Ownership: No one can use your work without your permission; · Value: In the marketplace, your ability to sell exclusive rights to a client triples the value of your work. - http://ipaorphanworks. The Orphan Works Act passed by the Senate Friday explicitly voids that exclusive right as expressed in Article 9 of the Berne Copyright Convention: (1) Authors of literary and artistic works protected by this Convention shall have the exclusive right of authorizing the reproduction of these works, in any manner or form. (2) It shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to permit the reproduction of such works in certain special cases, provided that such reproduction does not conflict with a normal exploitation of the work and does not unreasonably prejudice the legitimate interests of the author. (3) Any sound or visual recording shall be considered as a reproduction for the purposes of this Convention. http://www.law.cornell.edu/ There can be no responsible argument that the Orphan Works Act is consistent with Article 9 of Berne. None. Simple reason: the Orphan Works Act does not limit exemptions to an author's exclusive right to "certain special cases." Case closed. There are many other reasons to object to this terrible bill: it violates the entirety of Article 9. But we only need to make this single point to show that it's a radically new copyright law. Hiding the Rabbit The key to the Congressional magic act has been to hide an anti-copyright rabbit in an Orphan Works hat while misdirecting attention to a tedious debate about "reasonably diligent searches," injunctive relief and statutory damages. Meanwhile the secret of the trick has been simple: redefine an orphaned work as "a work by an unlocatable author." This new definition would permit any person to infringe any work by any artist at any time for any reason - no matter how commercial - so long as the infringer found the author sufficiently hard to find. Since everybody can be hard for somebody to find, this voids a rights holder's exclusive right to his own property. It defines the public's right to use private property as a default position, available to anyone whenever the property owner fails to make himself sufficiently available. This is a new definition of copyright law. The headline on the Copyright Office website should read: In the United States, Copyright Will No Longer Be the Exclusive Right of the Copyright Holder. This headline would at least have the virtue of candor. On March 13, the Register of Copyrights testified before the House IP Subcommittee. On page 1 of her testimony she said: "Every country has orphan works and I believe that, sooner or later, every country will be motivated to consider a solution. The solution proposed by the Copyright Office is a workable one and will be of interest to other countries." http://www.copyright.gov/docs/ You can bet it will be of interest to other countries, because the copyrights of other countries can now be orphans in the U.S. too. The Copyright Office and the Senate have thrown down a gauntlet to the world. Write your congressional representatives today and tell them not to follow. -Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership TAKE ACTION: EMAIL CONGRESS NOW Tell the House Judiciary Committee not to adopt the Senate version. We've supplied a special letter for this purpose: http://capwiz.com/ Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party. ______________________________ For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks. Over 70 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses. The Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public. International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write. If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@ Please post or forward this email to any interested party. |
Reamer Keller in CARTOON LAFFS
Jim Borgman leaves his daily editorial cartoonist position with the Cincinnatti Enquirer."I’ve said my piece, as Grandma Borgman would have said.
"One week after graduating from Kenyon College 32 years ago I started drawing editorial cartoons for the Cincinnati Enquirer, awestruck to be working for the only newspaper that had ever been spread across my Price Hill family’s kitchen table. I’ve barely looked up since. Some employee! Not a single promotion in three decades. My buddy says I’m “still stuck in the same dead-end job” I got right out of college.
"But what a job .... "
Don Wilder, the writer of the King Features Syndicate comic strip Crock, passed away September 24, 2008. No cause of death specified. A memorial service was held today."Wilder co-created the Foreign Legion-based gag strip in 1975 with artist Bill Rechin and the late Brant Parker of Wizard of Id fame. According to Editor & Publisher, the feature still boasts 200 clients. It is carried by King Features.
"Rechin and Wilder also launched a sport-related panel strip called Out Of Bounds after Crock was up in running. It did not last. There have been multiple Crock-related books including 1979's Crock (Ballantine) and several titles published with Hodder & Stoughton and Coronet in the UK.
"Wilder was an artist in addition to being a writer. He earned a degree from East Tennessee State and took courses at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He was during a long and varied career a technical illustrator and a visual-information specialist at the CIA. His newspaper obituary states that he lived in Fredericksburg, Virginia, having moved there from Knoxville in the mid-1960s to take the CIA position.
"He was a member of the National Cartoonists Society and the National Press Club."
One of the things I would have liked, when I was a kid growing up in Iowa, was to meet a real cartoonist in the real world.
"No, I am not available as a downloadable podcast."
Yesterday I showed 5 cartoons I mailed to Women's World magazine and asked you to guess which one was bought. Most of you got it right! It's the podcast one, above.
I'm surprised as well. I liked the guy playing videogames (below) better, but I suppose it infers a divorced parent and maybe that's not the WW image. I don't know.
"I swear he's just dating me for my son's video games."
Thanks so much to those who played along.
Related: an excerpt from SCORCHY SMITH AND THE ART OF NOEL SICKLES from Today's Inspiration.
When Noel Sickles gave up his strip, Scorchy Smith, it was because of a combination of "restlessness, deadlines, boredom and money," according to biographer Bruce Canwell. In an online excerpt of an interview from The Comics Journal #242, Sickles himself mentions that his salary at the beginning of his three-year stint on the strip was $47.50 per week. In spite of his managing to negotiate it to a respectable $125 a week, Sickles quit the strip in 1936 to pursue a career in magazine illustration.
"Will I give away my work?" is one of the fundamental questions that you, the creative professional, will have to decide.
"I swear he's just dating me for my son's video games."
This one is just silly and the "guy as a big kid" kinda character is always welcome.
"Sorry, no ice cream. Only those energy efficient light bulbs"
I like the above cartoon, but I have a feeling they have seen a lot of the energy efficient bulb gags and are bored to death with them.
"Well, the kiss didn't work. How about a cuddle?"
Unwanted interspecies sexual overtures! Too risky? Just edgy enough?
"No, I am not available as a downloadable podcast."
Tomorrow: the winner is revealed.
I have to write a paper on the career I want to go into and I chose cartooning. Please tell me:
1) How much money do you make?
2) How much education was required for you to get your job?
3) How much time does it take you to draw a cartoon?
4) How did you get into this business?
1) Cartoonists make anything between $0 per year and $50,000,000 per year just like actors, musicians and basketball players. And, like actors, musicians and basketball players, most cartoonists make closer to $0 than $50,000,000.
2) No education is required, only quality of work and some business acumen but that is true of most careers. Education is very important and it is unusual for anyone to be successful without a good education.
3) All my life. Some cartoonists brag about drawing quickly; I think this diminishes the value of their work in the eyes of their editors and readers. Good cartoonists think about their work all the time and spend a lit of time working to improve.
4) I started as a general illustrator, and then worked as a cartoon illustrator, then I worked as a toy inventor, I did a syndicated cartoon, then editorial cartoons. I drew other people's characters in other people's styles, working on projects for others before my career got to the point that I could draw as I wanted.
Friday at 2pm EST I'll be interviewed by the one and only Mr. Media in a live podcast feed.
Above: a subverted juxtaposition cartoon. This is more of a smile than a chuckle.
“'My studio in Queens is much bigger, but I’m perfectly content with this small desk,' he said of the simple wooden work space, outfitted with only a desk lamp, ruler and pencil sketches for a 'Battle of the Bands Competition' for an upcoming Archie comic. 'You’ll notice there’s no computer. This new electric pencil sharpener is about as technical as I get.'”There is more here than usual for a newspaper article. There is some background about Stan that I only learned after knowing him for the past seven years. Stan was, for instance, the fellow who decided on the costume colors for all of the seminal Marvel Comics characters. As he has told me, it's primary colors (red, blue) for the heroes and tertiary colors (purple, brown) for the villains.
"Ms. Goldberg explained. 'After a tragedy like that happens, your life changes forever, but you find a way to go on.'In addition to the article are 2 dozen photos of their place taken by Dana Shaw.
"Fortunately, the couple has found some solace through their involvement in a national organization, Parents of Murdered Children, and through their close connection with each other and their varied travels."
"Looking for your favorite Gahan Wilson cartoon? Wondering when it appeared and in which issue? For the first time ever, coming in the fall of 2009, Playboy and Fantagraphics Books will publish a deluxe hardcover edition with three slipcased volumes that contain every one of Gahan’s Playboy cartoons."Mr. Wilson began contributing to PLAYBOY in 1957. That's why they're going to need 3 big books for this!
"I am a writer in Berkeley, CA, helping someone work on a book on anger. He wants to use a Partch cartoon in the book, but has been unable to locate it. The caption is 'I sure got that witch doctor told,, (or 'Man, I sure got that witch doctor told') and shows a miniaturized man in a pith helmet standing on a bar in a tropical locale.
"Do you have any idea where I might find out where this was published and how to get publication rights?
"I am in touch with the UC Irvine library to whom Partch left 3,700 original cartoons but so far they don't seem very knowledgeable.
My live podcast interview originally slated for today has been rescheduled for Friday, September 19, at 2pm.
Above: more charcoal and more wash and it's all come out a bit muddy.
It's not every day when you get to see a local, personal story told in sequnetial art in the local paper -- although with Felice and Clay around, maybe it'll happen more often. The comic prompted a few letters of heartfelt support. This one, reprinted in its entirety, was especially poignant:"Actually, the comic strip struck me as rather tame. It certainly wasn't about sex. In fact, no one at the wedding even kissed - at least in the cartoon version. Much of the comic strip described a ceremony like any other wedding: fretting over the menu and tossing the bouquet; a justice of the peace who arrived late and employers (me!) who left early. Some of it was uniquely McCuistion's - like the guest who played video games at the party.
"Of course, not all comic strips are for children. The critically acclaimed Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's 2001 memoir about growing up in authoritarian Iran, for instance, is told completely through black-and-white cartoons. That doesn't mean we're not mindful of what we put in the newspaper. But McCuistion's cartoon was promoted on the front page and the title of the strip - 'How we got gay married' - certainly wasn't subtle. Parents reading the Monitor with their children shouldn't have felt surprised by the comic's content"
"Clay McCuiston's gay marriage cartoon page - check it out: a full-page cartoon, no less - cannot be ignored (Monitor Friday page, Sept. 5). Congratulations are due to him and his partner, even though he didn't feel the event was historic.
"Granted, I'll be 80 this January and my wife/partner and I have been through all the years when "playing a role" was the only way we could keep our jobs, but we still don't think we've really come to the place in our lives where a cartoon is the best descriptor.
"Happily, Kay and I lived long enough to take advantage of having a civil union this past February. We felt so rewarded to have this validation of the 28 years we've been together. The intangible and unexplained new feelings of respect and inclusion we've experienced ever since have been the hallmark of what the civil union did for us.
"Cartoon? No! Historic? Yes! Blessed? You bet!"
MARY LOU FULLER
Concord
"Isn't it funny how music is getting huge, sledgehammer like protection in HR 4279 and visual art is getting devalued and made worthless by this bill, HR 5889?"Read more below and take action by taking the 2 minutes it takes to send on an email. The links will tell you who your rep is, no worries. Add your voice.
Above: an anti-homeschooling cartoon is one that an editor may shy away from. This one was rejected many times by many magazines until it was scooped by the good people at Brandweek Magazine, a sister publication to Adweek.
Some news about me: I'll be interviewed in a live podcast by Mr. Media this Friday at 2pm EST. (UPDATE: THE INTERVIEW IS RESCHEDULED TO FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH AT 2PM EST.) We'll be talking about cartooning, the craft and the business.
Above: the tattered book jacket.
Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace.
— William Blake
O! Let me have thee whole, — all, all be mine!From the SEXCAPADES dustjacket:
That shape, that fairness, that sweet minor zest
Of love, your kiss—those hands, those eyes divine,
That warm, white lucent, million-pleasured breast—
Yourself—your soul—in pity give me all!
— John Keats
"After years of cartooning for Colliers, Saturday Evening Post and other mass circulation media, Al Ross one day looked at himself in the mirror. The face with the lather on it began to ask:Well, actually, he has some of the best caption writers around, as chosen by Mr. Bowles.
"'If this then love? Is sex always a symptom of psychoneurosis? Was Kinsey right? Or don't you suspect that there may have been a time, somehow, somewhere, when Boy did meet Girl and True Love's course ran true?'
"Al Ross cleared the lather from his face and brushed away a cobweb from his mind. He resolved to draw a whole bookful of cartoons, exactly as he felt, not as a caption writer prescribed. He would express his essential, romantic self in sensitive, simple strokes; he would wreck the sex hex. The result— Sexcapades."
Alas! Regardless of their doom
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come
Nor care beyond today.
— Thomas Gray
Banish the canker of ambitious thoughts.
— Shakespeare, II Henry VI
A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
— Robert Herrick
He unabashed her garter saw
That now would touch her skirts with awe.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
O pwerful love! That, in some respects, makes
a beast a man, in some other, a man a beast.
— Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor
"He is an accomplished painter, having studied at the Art Students League under McNulty and Lebrun; traces of this background have been discerned in his delineations by connoisseurs. To round out the picture it must be reported that he is a devotee to billiards, a weight lifter of sorts and an avid collector of African sculpture."
I was out at one of those big chain stores this morning, a Target store.
Graphic novelist Seth writes about the solitary life of a cartoonist in the September 2008 issue of THE WALRUS:A cartoonist isn’t like a writer. Writing requires a special kind of focus. Your mind must be utterly devoted to the task at hand. When I’m breaking down a strip or hammering out dialogue, I’m using that writer’s focus. But drawing and inking are different. They use different parts of the brain. I often find that when I’m drawing, only half my mind is on the work — watching proportions, balancing compositions, eliminating unnecessary details.
Above: Kack Pittman (left) gives the NCS tribute book to Frank Frazetta.
"We were such good friends and we understood each other," Mr. Melendez told the Newark Star-Ledger in 2002. "Sparky [Schulz's nickname] used to say to me, 'Bill, I'm a cartoon strip artist and you couldn't do what I do. You are an animation artist and I can't do what you do.' . . . So he never tried to crowd me, and I would never dare question what he did as a strip artist."
Here is the "Comic Character Creator" from the Cartoonists' Exchange in Pleasant Hill, Ohio. It's Exclusive, Original and "It's Fun!"
This is just a fraction of the instructional materials produced by the Cartoonists' Exchange, one of the then-many cartooning correspondence schools around during the 20th century.
This is an oversized (11" x 16") idea generator for those times when you need help. It opens up to a giant 22" x 32! I first blogged about this lovely item back in 2002 when I was the Andertoons guest blogger for a week, but the photos have been trashed. So, here it is again, with the photos restored:OK, as you know, a question cartoonists are often asked is, "Where do you get your ideas?" This fellow:
Esquire cartoonist Dan A. Runyan, figured out a way to answer that question and make a buck doing it. He developed the "Laugh Finder", a Depression-era "computer" for aspiring cartoonists I recently came across on eBay.
From the cover: "The Laugh Finder is a collection of the fundamental sources of humor that keep repeating themselves in cartoons.... With this comprehensive collection of cartoon fundamentals, the variety of combinations you can create from them is almost infinite. You simply spin for your combinations." Who needs to write gags? Who could resist?
It opens up like this ...
... revealing long lists of characters, places, accessories -- and the spinner that you use to put all the elements together:
So, by following the directions, I have all the elements I need! Hmm. I spin the dial to get my characters (dinosaur, party guest), an accessory (door) and a "basics of humor" situation (embarassment):
So much fun!
"Just a little while ago cartoonist Mike Lynch posted some food cartoons on his blog. There was two gags they seemed to me very funny: the catholic joke and the dog in the psychologist's office. I liked both of them really. I thought I could illustrate some ideas I had from the ones above mentioned they suddenly came to me when I was reading them."
Above: a scan of humorous illustrator Jack Pittman's original art "How to Draw Like Frazetta."
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