Marketing Art

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Comment by SusiFranco on September 3, 2008 at 10:21am

http://realitysquared.deviantart.com/journal/17811892/

Re: prior posting-
For some reason, the hyper-link function doesn't seem to be working, so just copy n' paste this address into your browser....

Comment by SusiFranco on September 3, 2008 at 10:20am

Take a look at the above link; it is an intensive in-depth look at the Orphaned Art Act, dispels alot of myth surrounding the act, explains it's true mission and how it afects professional artists. I know it surprised me, very different than the info I've seen previously, should go a long way toward helping artists not be so apprehensive about this Act...see what you think....

Comment by Bob Eggleton on May 18, 2008 at 2:18pm

One of the things I have the advantage of is that I have five books of my work in print out from a British publisher and one in Texas. Each of the books is registered in the Library of Congress(by the US co-publisher) as copyrighted to me, by the publisher(who copyrights the entire "look" of the book which is standard as they sell it), that protects me. Most anything "published" in a book is protected. Of course, if it's a GREAT idea, it should be registerd AND TRADEMARKED. With larger works I do copyright them the "long" way. It's all a tax write-off anyway for the fees. I have never seen a need to fight for damages, and I've had this stuff happening to me off and on for the better part of 15 years. It's kind of like the whole music download madness that exploded.

ALso, and Krzysztof also mentions, not having "high rez" images out there helps mightily. There's very little money or damages that can be made from a low rez image with regard to image theft. This hasn't stopped people from scanning in images from SPECTRUM or whatever, but they're still scanning in something that's already been sized down and again, good repro would be in question. My issues have been few and far between and most always resolved.

As the the Bill. Yes indeed I've written. We can only see what happens. We have a Democrat Congress and if they do anything they're at least for the arts in some way so that will count for something in the end. It's got alot of attention not just here but all over. I get even more concerned about "local" political moves that affect the arts. I'd NEVER throw in the towel with art over political issues.

As an aside to this, I had some interesting "name use theft". As a "name" in the sci fi field, I am thinking of trademarking my name(it can be done) because of a recent problem with another "Bob Eggleton" who is attempting to be a writer and using some of my.."Cred" as it were, to gain notice. It's not identity theft as we know it, he's got the right to his name which is the same as mine. But the problem is he's riding on my coattail, as it were. It's an odd problem to have and luckily he's encountered too many people who know me and know, that he, is not...me.

Comment by Bunny Griffeth on May 18, 2008 at 7:04am

I'm going to paste at least this link in the hopes someone might get the incentive to read the rest of the links.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=CqBZd0cP5Yc

For myself, I contacted the director of the RI Watercolor Society so she can notify our members and write to their representative to oppose this. This bill is a trojan horse, and in it ANY work not registered is an "orphan work".
I don't know about anyone else, but I can't afford to copyright my work.

Comment by Krzysztof Mathews on May 17, 2008 at 11:40pm

Hey there,

One of the first things I learned some while ago is that even though an artist has automatic copyright from the point of creation, if the work is not registered, then you are in for a hell of a ride (pardon my vulgarity here) if you want to actually try and fight for damages.

So register...Properly. According to folks I know who work in IP (Intellectual Property)Law, the whole "mail yourself a copy of your painting/screenplay/novel" model really does not do very well when the compost hits the fan. A properly registered property in the Library of Congress is considered solid in any court.

As others have mentioned, do NOT put print quality work ( 300 DPI) online, or any image larger than a certain size online. In my case, my images are 72 DPI and no larger than a maximum of 600 pixels in one dimension. I also have my copyright clearly displayed as part of the piece.

And also, be sure to look at the fine print of where you show your work online. Some sites have a "One Click" registration that gives them permission to use your work for publicity without your specific consent, or to redistribute said work as part of their advertising.

If you are entirely comfortable with the site, and give consent, then that is fine, but you don't suddenly want to find thumbnails of your work grouped with dubious material as part of a spam campaign, or being used in perpetuity when the site owner changes the focus of the site and begins exhibiting work that is not complementary to your own, while using yours as advertising material.

Just a few thoughts. Good discussion, folks!

Comment by Bunny Griffeth on May 17, 2008 at 7:24pm

I just want to clarify...it's not just OLD work. ANYTHING which doesn't have a copyright would be open for grabs. Even work going back 30 years would be up for grabs.
At least now if someone steals your work you can threaten to sue because copyright is inherent in everything we do, but this law would CHANGE that.
As I said, there are links in the article to find your local representative and send an email telling them you oppose it. If we don't speak up for ourselves, there's no big lobby out there that's going to do it for us.

Comment by Bob Eggleton on May 17, 2008 at 1:55pm

Bunny- thanks on this-I've been all over this one myself, on another forum entirely. It's big news. In my case I've had a great deal of work ripped off thanks to some people uploading hi rez files of images from books of mine. There's almost nothing I can do about it, and, in some cases as odd as this sounds, it winds up working for me in that I sold something else or got a job through it. In one case, an uploaded image(at 72dpi) resulted in that I sold ten prints of the piece and then a publisher in India paid me to use it(!!) Nice people there, too. "They wanted to be honest". I'm not going to make lawyers richer as it's like cutting the head off a hydra-five grow in it's place and you keep spending thou$and$ of dollar$ to keep cutting heads off things. Lately, none of my new work has been involved with it, and frankly I keep all jpegs of work at 72 DPI which is fairly hard to get anything salvagable out of for repro purposes. My blog is pretty good in that it shows things but downloading them is harder to do. In fact I even had one ballsy S.O.B. write me and ask "if I could send a 300 dpi image?" Usually, when someone copyrights their work themselves it holds well. The Orphan thing as far as I can tell is more worrisome for older work-from dead artists- and stuff that's gotten loose(and some of mine has). I shut down one idiot who was selling scanned in calendar images of my work and, guys like Sargent, Van Gogh, etc so while I felt in good company, he complied with my request. In another case a guy "stole" my art but found he was led astray himself and fessed up. We worked it out and I wound up with a few T shirts, and it's all cool now.

I find the internet problems are things that are inevitable and I can't let it drive me crazy. Maybe someone made a few bucks off it, but on the whole many images are just used as personal enjoyment and I take it as that.

Unfortunately this bill is something that's again of use to the evil corporates that run the country and most of the politicians, and have been running amok, unregulated for the last...oh, seven years(Gee I wonder why? Hmmm..hmmm) It's resulted in not only bills like this, but the current mortgage/credit crisis, soaring insurance and medical costs, and so on. It shows that even artists are part of this as victims as much as anyone else.

The cool thing about painting and selling "traditional" art as opposed to digital is that there's the ONE item. And someone, somewhere will buy that one item. So at least we can take some peace knowing what we make is as individual as a human finger print.

Comment by Bunny Griffeth on May 17, 2008 at 11:41am

I just want to add, in case you haven't seen it yet, the discussion in the forums regarding a bill being proposed called the Orphan Work law, which basically would take all of our art work and make it usable by anyone on the internet or any where else unless we pay to have it copyrighted. I won't repeat the discussion here, but I hope you'll take a look and take the time to contact your representatives (links in the discussion).
Also, if you belong to any art societies, I think you should forward the information to them so they can respond as well.

Comment by SusiFranco on May 17, 2008 at 9:34am

Know what ?? I LOVE that you speak of working in different areas, a broad range. For me personally, that is an organic component of Art. I have caught some flack for not painting the same thing all the time, which I just have alot of trouble doing, seems counter-intuitive to me. I'll do 5 or 6 ( or more) of a series, a particular theme or school and then I'm done and want to move on to something new, a new idea or concept or technique I want to attempt. I think it makes perfect sense because I can appeal to a much broader audience of buyers. I'm not interested in trying to be everything to everybody, mind you; I love color, am a colorist ( Post-Impressionist w/ a Fauvist influence, ahem :) and that unifies my body of work. Anyway, I love that you talk about working in more than one area. It is freeing and I can't imagine giving that up, getting "painted into a corner" as you say. :) It is lovely to have this chance to discuss this with another artist, thank you~
PS--I write my own contracts, too, and also get the red pen out when reviewing someone else's contract for me. I agree that it gets a certain reaction; seems some people are not prepared for artists who are not awkward about biz. I do all I can to educate other artists in this area, those who want to learn, that is. We HAVE to protect ourselves, our work.

Comment by Bob Eggleton on May 16, 2008 at 11:52pm

Hey Susi-thanks for the kind words. I just like being "an artist", it's why I love plein air work when I can-gets me out in the air and noticing the cool things around us all the time like the colors in nature. All that feeds the other stuff I do for cover art, movies, etc. I don't like to "specialize" because it paints one(no pun) into a corner. Art is evolution in action. I like a very broad range of stuff from traditional realism to even some abstract work if it's got the "heart" to it. I totally agree that if you're work is selling at the price it's at, you're doing well. I don't believe in overpricing. I know people that do and part of that is the gallery scene. What kills me about alot of the high end galleries is they take a 50%(and some 60%!!) cut and, unless the price is up there, it cuts deep into things in the end. Springbull in NEwport is a gallery I do well with. Nice, nice people,like old friends now, and they tend to sell lower priced pieces, but their cut is a paltry 25% last I remember so it's not so bad. When I was on the "Guest Wall" at the back, there was no commission and, then I sold four pieces all around $150 each.

People love to have art. So my theory is similar to Peter Max' theory that he makes art for all price ranges whether(on his level) it's clothes or, a print or, a large painting. Everyone gets a little something. And HE'S still BIG!! And it worked well for me, keeping small paintings around the $100 mark. Not everyone has a spare grand or more in their pocket. I too learned all this the "hard" way. I've done this for 25 years this year-last time I ever worked a 9-5 job was in 1983 and through all kinds of economic ups and downs I managed to survive. And I started writing about creating art for a British magazine and getting paid for that too. So it's all part of the plan...or whatever that I seem to make up as I go along.

I have shunned Reps myself after being...well, screwed by a few. Like you said, it's turning over your love and product to someone else that treats it like a commodity.
In the Commercial Art biz, it's not unsual to find contacts who only DEAL with reps because they claim(as one did to me) "It makes business easier".

I handle my own business which also can be weird because I meet people all the time that don't expect this long-haired Rob Zombie look-a-like(me, I've been told so!) to open his mouth and be ready with business points, facts, numbers and so forth. In fact I've met some "MBA business guys" that just resent me speaking "their" language and I've talked rings around them. I've altered contracts, crossed out and re-written stuff just because I know a bad deal when I see it. Or smell it. Whichever the case.

At Springbull, they had a "customer" come in and want two of my small paintings. Both were around $150 and $120 each respectively. He wanted BOTH for $180(!!!) and I told him no, no no way. It was apparent he was a dealer or some kind of decorator and wanted a deal he could "mark up". I didn't budge. And, lo and behold, a few weeks later the same paintings sold for exactly what I wanted for them to someone else. It takes a leap of faith but, sometimes, it works!

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