Mind Your Business: Who is Keeping Your Royalties?
However, that percentage looks to be rising drastically as the booklet states, "Several organizations reported a significant increase in copying visual material when scanning and other forms of digital copying are permitted which increased the share of revenues allocated to visual material."
If this 15% estimate is accurate, more than $150 million of the money the CCC distributed to publishers, authors and creators should have eventually made it to U.S. visual artists. (Call your publisher or editor and find out what happened to your money.) What could we do with $150 million?
Not only would that be a lot of money for us as individuals, it would also raise a lot of money for the ASIP to fight for artists rights.
By raising the issue of reprographic fairness for illustrators, cartoonists and others, ASIP has already begun to shake up the status quo. According to Brad Holland, some foreign collecting societies have begun inquiries to determine what is happening to the money they've already returned to other organizations in the U.S. At least two countries have now stopped making payments to those groups. They are saving the royalties in escrow waiting for a group like ASIP to acquire a mandate from American illustrators.
Let's give it to them!
Mark Simon is an award-winning animation director/producer. His animation is online at www.FunnyToons.tv. He is also the co-founder of www.SellYourTvConceptNow.com. He has pitched and landed over 25 deals for his own projects. He is currently turning the hit comic strips B.C. and Wizard of Id into animated properties.
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Hi, I am the living example that was quoted in the article who lives in Oslo, Norway. I just came back from attending the international conference for the Association of Medical Illustrators in Portland, OR. I was able to attend this meeting since I was awarded this spring a $ 5800 travel stipend from reprographic rights money collected here in Norway. I can not emphasize enough to illustrators the importance of letting ASIP be your collecting society. Sign up today. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!
Sincerely, Kari C. Toverud
Mark,
Thanks again for taking such an interest in the subject of reprographic rights and thanks for taking so much time with the article. You did the art business a great service in 08, when you helped us get the Orphan Works story out. Now you’ve performed a similar public service with this piece.
We started ASIP for one reason: nobody else was doing it and unless somebody does it, it won’t get done.
In the last several months, over 500 of us have signed reprographic rights mandates. We invite any artist to join who’s had at least two published works in publications with ISBN or ISSN numbers. The form’s easy to fil out and membership is free.
Reprographic licensing is a multi-million dollar business. The money comes from the secondary licensing of our work by publishers. But it’s like jukebox money: we can never get a fair share of it until we come together as a copyright society. The distribution has to be done in a legally-accountable manner.
Other countries have pioneered the statistical means to determine how payments should be made. A good example is Great Britain’s Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS). Read about their Payback system here: dacs.org.uk
The second goal of a copyright society is just as important: to give artists an effective voice in the future management of our secondary rights.This is critical because of the way our business is changing.
When I started as an artist, we made our living doing commissioned work. Back then it was considered unethical to license art to one client that we had done for another. But the Internet has changed all that. Now many clients commission work only when they can’t find stock.
Stock and royalty-free sales, reprographic licensing, orphan works infringements: these are all part of the same rights picture.
They’re all efforts by opportunists to control our secondary rights. But unless artists come together as a market force, sooner or later the opportunists will win.
Two years ago we beat the odds. We stopped the Orphan Works Bill. We did it despite warnings from everyone that it couldn’t be done. We did it, but we had to rally like Minutemen in our nightshirts to the bridge at Concord. How many times can we keep doing that and expect to win?
The anti-copyright lobby didn’t go home when the last Congress adjourned. They’re a permanent presence in Washington. A copyright society – if properly funded – could give artists a permanent voice in Washington to protect and advance our rights. That’s why we started ASIP and that’s why I’ve signed the ASIP mandate myself.
The 12 groups that came together as ASIP include editorial, book and advertising artists, magazine and editorial cartoonists, medical and general science illustrators and architectural and aviation artists. It also includes regional arts organizations. These groups formed the nucleus of the 85 groups that united to fight orphan works.
Two years ago we showed what artists can do by coming together. Joining ASIP could be the first step of the next step toward protecting our rights in the Internet age.
On behalf of the board of ASIP, we invite you to join us.
– Brad Holland
For the Board of ASIP
Is it true that the Graphic Artists Guild has been collecting reprographic fees for years on behalf of artists in the U.S.?
If you're a professional artist, follow Mark's advice and sign the ASIP membership form. It's easy, free, and might even result in you getting a small check some day.
I've signed for my cartoons.
Stu Rees
stu@stus.com
Kuldeep,
If you are asking about our Hit Makers Summit, that is not a festival. It's a TV conference where we work with our members on the development, packaging and how to pitch their TV concepts.
Mark
hello sir
i am a student of animation doing from delhi (INDIA). i want to ask something for this great event. please send me a reply.
1. can student's can show their artwork in this festival.
2. is any charge will taken from student / if any how much..??
i will be very obliged to you if you send me the reply.
thanking you sir
kuldeep singh rathore
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