Cover for The Ragged Man, by Tom Lloyd, from Pyr Books:
Oh, Hell!
And a couple details:
February 4th, 2010
New Art:
New Art
Cover for the new edition of Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, by Elizabeth Mo0n, from Baen Books:
Paks ©Todd Lockwood
November 24th, 2009
The Beautiful Grim
Last week the talented artist Daarken dropped me a line and invited me to participate in a project that he is putting together. The cause is selfless and honorable, so I wanted to pass the information along to everyone.
He wrote:
“My name is Daarken and I am a concept artist and illustrator working for Mythic Entertainment. My friend Leif Jeffers, an animator at DreamWorks, and I are organizing an art auction fundraiser that will be held next year.
Earlier this year my girlfriend, Cat, was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 25. On November 3rd, 2009, she had a bilateral mastectomy after going through 16 weeks of chemotherapy. As you can imagine it has been hard for her, not only mentally and physically, but financially. In order to help alleviate some of her medical bills Leif and I wanted to throw an art auction. The proceeds that are left over after her medical bills have been paid will go to a breast cancer related charity to be determined by the artists in the coming weeks.
We currently have artists contributing that hail from all regions of the industry: concept artists, animators, photographers, sculptors, fine artists, illustrators, you name it. The theme for the auction is “Beautiful Grim.” The interpretation of “Beautiful Grim” has been left up to the artists. A tentative deadline for the art has been set for February 1st, 2010. Venues to hold the event are also currently being researched, but so far we are considering either San Francisco or New York.”
To learn more, to donate a piece of art, or to simply keep track of progress, visit BeautifulGrim.Org.
Thanks, everybody!
November 8th, 2009
Speak out for the rights of artists, authors, and musicians
If you are a working artist, author, or musician, you owe it to yourself to sign this petition to the President and Vice President.
The letter you will be adding your name to:
We, the undersigned, are just a few of the more than 11 million artists living, working, and creating across the United States. Our work brings significant cultural and economic value to our society – and contributes $1.52 trillion to the nation’s GDP. Yet that value is being disregarded as our rights and incentives to create are increasingly under threat.
Hear us as we speak with one voice about the importance of creators’ rights.
We are the essence of America. Since the founding of our country, our work has provided light in the darkness of conflict, humor in the depths of sadness, beauty in the face of ugliness, and reason in the dysfunction of division.
We serve as the foundation of our communities; you find us in schools, performance halls, libraries, museums, community centers, and movie houses. We enrich our culture with a wide range of creative expression, including music, film, software, video games, writing, photography, graphics, and other visual arts.
We contribute in some way to every single industry in the country. Many of us are self-employed. All of us work hard and pay taxes.
Yet, we are under assault. Our rights to control the distribution, use, and reproduction of our works in our vibrant digital age are dismissed by many who do not understand the value we bring to society. They tell us to work harder, create better, and give our works away. Some think that they should control our works and that they should be able to appropriate, perform, and copy them how they please, without our consent, benefit, or participation.
Our freedom as creators lies in the Constitutional rights we cherish, rights given to us to promote our culture. Without these rights, our ability to pursue our creative dreams and to meet the high expectations of those who benefit from our creative works is significantly diminished. As a result, all Americans will suffer.
Mr. President and Vice President, hear our call. We know you understand the value our creative contributions bring to our society and economy, and we know you can encourage our citizens to respect our rights. Please pursue policies supportive of the rights of artists and the encouragement of our creative efforts. Without the proper respect for our rights and works today, it will become even more difficult for us to create in the future.
Posted by Todd in Art!, Blog Home, Orphaned Works at 2:12 PM PST
November 2nd, 2009
Shows this year
Chattacon will be held January 22-24, 2010 at the historic Chattanooga Choo-Choo Hotel. Call 800-TRACK29 for reservations.
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July 22nd to July 25th, at the San Diego Convention Center | 111 West Harbor Drive | San Diego, CA 9210I
understand that I will probably be moved from the spot I had the last two years; I’ll post news as it comes to me.
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I am working on my first ever Dealer’s Room experience at Dragon Con! Look for me there!
October 27th, 2009
Jump!
Scott Fischer is a bud of mine, and he has an amazing opportunity here: GM is going to choose five kid’s books to put in boxes of GM cereals, like Cheerios and Kix. they’re conducting an election of sorts, and the top five winners will get national exposure for their books. Scott has been in the lead for a week and a half, but as the thing starts to wind down, his numbers are slipping. So I want to pull out all the stops for him!
Please go view his videos on YouTube – they’re pretty darn hilarious – then go to the Simon & Schuster link at each one and vote. Vote from every computer in your house! Vote from your iPhone! Vote from your iPod touch! Just Vote! For JUMP!
Thanks!
Posted by Todd in Blog Home at 12:59 PM PDT
October 21st, 2009
New Art up on my website!
And ain’t it about @#$%! time!?
Click on the picture to go see:
October 2nd, 2009
Google Wants; Part III
FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP
Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part III
10.2.09
Compelling Arguments
On September 10, 2009, Marybeth Peters, Register of the US Copyright Office, testified before Congress in opposition to the Google Book Search Settlement. Her arguments on behalf of creators rights are compelling and we support them. However, we note with some irony that they are nearly identical to the arguments we made in opposing the Orphan Works bill last year. We don’t know what conclusions to draw from this fact, but we think it’s fair to draw attention to it.
We’ve picked several examples below and matched them with quotes from our own writings and testimony. In every case, the emphasis is ours.
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “The [Google] settlement is not merely a compromise of existing claims, or an agreement to compensate past copying and snippet display. Rather, it could affect the exclusive rights of millions of copyright owners, in the United States and abroad, with respect to their abilities to control new products and new markets, for years and years to come.”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: The bill’s sponsors say it’s merely a small adjustment to copyright law. In fact…its provisions have been drafted so broadly it will orphan the work of working artists. Its consequences will be far reaching, long lasting, perhaps irreversible and will strike at the heart of art itself.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “[The Book Rights Registry] is likely to have the unfortunate effect of creating a false database of orphan works, because in practice any work that is not claimed will be deemed an orphan.”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “As clients come to rely on these [visual arts] registries as one-stop shopping centers for rights clearance, any works not found in the registries could be infringed as orphans.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “Compulsory licenses… are scrutinized very strictly because by their nature they impinge upon the exclusive rights of copyright holders…By its nature, a compulsory license ‘is a limited exception to the copyright holder’s exclusive right . . . As such, it must be construed narrowly.’”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “[The Orphan Works bill] radically abridges the fundamental principal of exclusive rights granted to creators under the copyright law, and creates a sweeping compulsory license permitting large scale unauthorized use of not only older works, the provenance of which may be difficult to determine, but also of the valuable contemporary works that are the economic life blood of those in our profession.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “Compulsory licenses are generally adopted by Congress only reluctantly, in the face of a marketplace failure.”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “The Copyright Office only received about 215 relevant letters to their Orphan Works Study. From this they deduced a claim of widespread market failure in commercial markets…” ” But the Copyright Office studied the specific subject of orphaned work. They did not inquire about the workings of commercial markets and there is no evidence in their report that business clients are unable to find the living authors they wish to work with. No evidence whatsoever.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “In summary, the out-of-print default rules would allow Google to operate under reverse principles of copyright law…”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “[The Orphan Works bill] creates 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.” “[I]ts logic reverses copyright law.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “In essence, the proposed settlement would give Google a license to infringe first and ask questions later…”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “Since orphan works transactions would occur only after infringement, the rights holder would have no leverage to bargain for more than the infringer is willing or able to pay.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “[C]opyright law has always left it to the copyright owner to determine whether and how an out-of-print work should be exploited.”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “Under copyright law, no author can be compelled to publish his or her work. So by what right of eminent domain can Congress give strangers the right to publish our work without our knowledge, consent or payment?”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “The broad scope of the out-of-print provisions and the large class of copyright owners they would affect will dramatically impinge on the exclusive rights of authors, publishers, their heirs and successors.”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “The fundamental problem with the Orphan Works Act is that it’s been drafted so broadly its use cannot be confined to real orphaned work situations.” “To redefine an orphaned work as “a work by an unlocatable author” is to radically re-define the ownership of private property…Since everybody can be hard for somebody to find, this voids a rights holder’s exclusive right to his or her own property.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “Some foreign governments have raised questions about the compatibility of the proposed settlement with Article 5 of the Berne convention, which requires that copyright be made available to foreign authors on a no less favorable basis than to domestic authors, and that the “enjoyment and exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality.”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “[P]utting pressure on creators to subsidize the creation of privately-owned registries violates the intent of international copyright law, specifically Article 5(2) of the Berne Convention: “The enjoyment and the exercise of these rights shall not be subject to any formality.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “The ability of copyright owners and technology companies to share advertising revenue and other potential income streams is a worthy and symbiotic business goal that makes a lot of sense when the terms are mutually determined. And the increased abilities of libraries to offer on-line access to books and other copyrighted works is a development that is both necessary and possible in the digital age. However, none of these possibilities should require Google to have immediate, unfettered, and risk-free access to the copyrighted works of other people. They are not a reason to throw out fundamental copyright principles; they are a pretext to do so.”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “The internet has created a culture of appropriation; and immediate global access to artistic works has facilitated piracy, unintentional infringement and plagiary. But instant and unrestricted access to work should not be construed as a necessity just because technology has made it a possibility. That an artist’s work now can be instantly transmitted around the world without the artist’s permission or control does not justify a user’s ‘right’ to take the work.”
* * * * *
Marybeth Peters on the Google Book Settlement: “[T]he settlement would inappropriately interfere with the on-going efforts of Congress to enact orphan works legislation in a manner that takes into account the concerns of all stakeholders as well as the United States’ international obligations.”
IPA on the Orphan Works Bill: “This bill has been drafted behind closed doors, without a needs-assessment study, an economic impact analysis, or an evaluation of how the public would be affected by this transfer of private property from individuals to giant commercial databases…For artists, the most troubling part has been our near-total exclusion from the legislative process.”
“On July 11th [2008], on behalf of all those who oppose this bill, [we] submitted Amendments to the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property. Those Amendments would make this bill a true orphan works bill. The Amendments have never been considered…This is no way to re-write U.S. copyright law.”
Q.E.D.
The Register’s full testimony from September 10, 2009 can be found here.
Our comments have been excerpted from various articles posted in 2008 on the IPA Orphan Works blog.
- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership
Over 85 organizations opposed the last Orphan Works bills, 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.
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For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators’ Partnership Orphan Works Blog
Posted by Todd in Blog Home, Orphaned Works at 1:46 PM PDT
September 29th, 2009
Google Steals; Part II
FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP
Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement / Part II
9.29.09
A Reversal of Copyright Law
Last Friday we summarized the basic details of the Google Book Search Settlement. Like the visual arts “databases” we opposed last year, this agreement would allow both Google and a yet-to-be-created Book Rights Registry to commercially profit from an author’s work whenever they say they can’t locate the author.
Both schemes would force authors to opt out of commercial operations that infringe their work – or to “protect” their work by opting-in to privately owned databases run by infringers. This Hobson’s Choice for authors reverses the principle of copyright law.
The by-product of the Google settlement (again like the Orphan Works bill) would be to establish public access to private property as the default position in copyright law. In other words, it presumes:
a.) that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right,
b.) that it’s your legal obligation to make your work available, and
c.) that if you fail to do so, you forfeit your exclusive right to control access to your work.
If you’re an author and you wish to keep the book you write from becoming a potential orphan, you’d therefore have to register it with the Book Rights Registry run by the parties that settled with Google (and who will receive an award of $30 million for cutting themselves in).
Advocates of the deal try to justify it by saying it will make more books available to more people than at any other time in history – a claim that’s no doubt true – but therefore they say, as Andrew Albanese writes in Publishers Weekly, “the massive public good of the deal far outweigh[s] the individual greivances [sic] of rightsholders.”
Yet it’s in this very argument that the danger lies.
Once the Copy Left has established a legal precedent that the property rights of authors can be subordinated to the assertion of public interest, they can build on that principle to enact further statute and case laws to benefit commercial interests. To do this, they’ll have to chip away further at the inherent property rights of individuals.
Orphan Works: “Half a Loaf”
An example of the agenda that underlies both the Google book search settlement and the Orphan Works bill came in May, 2008, at a time when the Orphan Works bill looked to be a shoo-in by early summer. Anticipating a quick mopping up operation, the bill’s advocates were high-fiving one another. But as James V. DeLong of the Convergence Law Institute reminded them, there was still much work ahead.
Calling the Orphan Works bill just “half a loaf,” he hinted at what it would take to permit commercial interests to take the whole loaf:
“These possibly-orphan, sort-of-orphan, and gray literature works simply cannot be made available if the digitizers are required to make one-by-one judgments and seek permission before copying. If they are to be retrieved in useful form, then sooner or later Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and some others must be permitted to digitize on a massive scale.”
Of course he acknowledged that the new reverse copyright law should not deprive intellectual property owners of their “legitimate rights.” But he reaffirmed the Copy Left’s fundamental premise that intellectual property owners should not be entitled to legitimate rights except in situations where they’ve registered their works:
“At some point, some kind of grand grandfathering proceeding will probably be required, a window in which holders of existing rights must reaffirm them or lose them.” (Italics added)
Again, this is the same premise we see at work in the Google book settlement. As Lynn Chu, a principal at Writers Representatives LLC, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, March 28, 2009:
“Under the settlement, every rights-owner in America is supposed to hand over all their private contract data, on every edition of every work they ever wrote — and every excerpt permission ever granted to others — at the peril of losing the money Google will be making on their backs. This is a massive burden on everyone in the book industry, making us all, in effect, Google’s data-entry slaves. Indeed, in most cases such information about every permission ever granted is unlocatable. It opens a Pandora’s box of disputes and mistaken claims about who actually owns what.” (Italics added)
This is identical to our warning last year about the Orphan Works bill:
“[The Orphan Works bill] would force artists either to entrust their entire life’s work to privately owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement. It would let giant image banks access our commercial inventory and metadata – and enter our commercial markets as clearinghouses to compete with us for our own clients. I can think of no other field where small business owners can be pressured to supply potential competitors with their content, business data and client contact information.” – Brad Holland, Small Business Administration Roundtable, August 8, 2008
The War on Authors
Both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill have their intellectual rationale in the war on authors that began decades ago in the obscure theories of Postmodern literary critics. Their fundamental premise is that all creativity is communal and that authors are only the agents through which the community creates. This has led a handful of activist legal scholars to demand changes in the law requiring artists, writers and others to affirm and reaffirm the rights to use their own work by, in effect, licensing it from the public “commons.”
This argument, Marxist in its origins, has found its unlikely champion in those large commercial Internet interests that hope to build Information Age empires supplying businesses and the public with creative “content.” By defining millions of works as orphans on the premise that some might be, both the Google Book settlement and the Orphan Works bill would allow these opportunists to profit by harvesting the work of others, providing their databases with content they could never afford to create themselves nor license from authors.
Next: Orphan Works and the Google Book Settlement /Part III: Compelling Arguments
The Register of the US Copyright Office has condemned the Google settlement in terms nearly identical to our condemnation last year of the Orphan Works bill. In Part III, we’ll examine those similarities to see the patterns that are emerging from this insidious effort to change copyright law.
- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership
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For news and information, and an archive of these messages:
Illustrators’ Partnership Orphan Works Blog
Posted by Todd in Blog Home, Orphaned Works at 10:11 PM PDT
September 15th, 2009
Experiment in 3D
This is something I’ve always wanted to try:
Hold your two hands up about six inches from your face, about two inches apart. The idea is to find a position in which your left eye can only see the right image, and your right eye can only see the left image.
Then cross your eyes until the two images merge.
Voila!
