Intellectual Property Link-O-Rama
on August 22nd, 2009Some EU countries are now imposing stiff financial penalties on tourists who buy fake designer goods.
In France those caught buying fake designer clothes, sunglasses, sports gear, handbags and watches could face a fine of up to 300,000 euros (£260,000) or a three year prison sentence.
I have a pair of fake Chanel sunglasses. I do not dare go to France with them. Anyone who wishes me to have an authentic pair of Chanel sunglasses is welcome to send them to me.
New opposition to the Google settlement coming in from Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo.
Google reached the sweeping settlement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers in October. The two groups had sued Google for copyright infringement in 2005 over the company’s plan to digitize millions of books from libraries, alleging copyright violations. The agreement sets up a mechanism for Google, along with a registry operated by authors and publishers, to display and sell millions of books online.
According to Consumer Watchdog, because the settlement guarantees that Google would be offered the same terms from the Book Rights Registry that any competitor might receive, competitors would be discouraged from establishing a competing service. The most favored clause should be eliminated to remove barriers to entry, the letter states, adding that “it is inappropriate for the resolution of a class action lawsuit to effectively create an anti-compete clause.”
Stash of works by Frida Kahlo may be a big fat fake.
Princeton Architectural Press, which will soon publish a book of Kahlo’s oil paintings, diary entries and personal letters, says it has stumbled across “an astonishing lost archive of one of the 20th century’s most revered artists … full of ardent desires, seething fury, and outrageous humour.”
But news of the discovery has prompted a group of Kahlo scholars to denounce the items – which belong to an antique-dealing Mexican couple who bought them from a lawyer who got them from a woodcarver who claimed to have got them from Kahlo – as fakes.
Australia moves to protect the rights of exploited indigenous artists.
The code, updated from a draft version released in December, still accommodates non-cash transactions between dealers and artists. This includes paying for paintings with used vehicles and alcohol. The original draft would have prevented dealers from remunerating artists “with drugs or alcohol”. The reference to alcohol has been removed from the revised code, which states that unprofessional conduct includes paying for work with “drugs or illegal goods or services”.
Eyebrow raising truths of the art business. I have also been paid monies owed in the form of a used car. I still have the car. It’s a good car. It is the only time that person ever actually paid me fairly for anything.
In Spain, magicians go to war over the rights to magic tricks.
The magicians have asked Spanish lawyers to come up with ways of challenging the Masked Magician and his programme Magic Without Secrets in court, claiming that their favourite tricks should be protected by intellectual property laws.
British Equity hopes to get payments for exploited reality show contestants who receive nothing for appearing on the telly.
The motion will read: “The contestants in such programmes are often compelled to enter into restrictive contracts and because of a loophole in the National Minimum Wage Act for competitions they generally do not get paid.
“These programmes may be very popular with the public but are based on exploitation and humiliation of vulnerable people, which cannot be acceptable.
“The public’s demand for high-quality entertainment should be met by professional drama and light entertainment which has been replaced by this cheap exploitation.”
Another nutter hoped to attract attention for themselves by attacking the Mona Lisa.
This is far from being the first attempt to vandalize the Mona Lisa itself. Among other incidents, in 1956, a stone was thrown at it by a man disturbed at being forced into political exile from Bolivia.
Photographer Annie Leibovitz in hot water: she took out loans on her art, and can’t pay them back. Hat tip to Arlene Harris.
Ms. Leibovitz approached Art Capital, which is based in Manhattan, in June 2008, concerning her “dire financial condition” arising from “mortgage obligations, tax liens and unpaid bills to service providers and other creditors,” the suit alleges.
Ms. Leibovitz reportedly earns $3 million a year for her magazine work for Vanity Fair and Vogue and tens of thousands of dollars daily for commercial shoots.
British National Gallery (and other museums) claim copyright on fine arts long out of copyright.
U.S. law provides a precedent almost eerie in its similarity to the current controversy. In the late 1990s the Bridgeman Art Library Ltd., a British company that licenses fine art images, sued Corel Corp. for selling a CD-ROM featuring public-domain images taken in part from Bridgeman’s collection of copies. The company claimed that the effort, skill and judgment that went into making high-quality photos meant those images were covered by copyright, even though the paintings being copied were all of moldy vintage.
Meant to post this much earlier: Liability insurance for bloggers.
Upper East Side New York art dealer engages in big fat cheat to the tune of $88 million.
The Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, said the dealer, Lawrence B. Salander, sometimes sold the same painting to more than one buyer. Aides to Mr. Morgenthau said Mr. Salander sold one painting to three people, promising each a 50 percent share.
Victims of the fraudster include tennis player John McEnroe.
Fabulous Fakes pondered at the Boston Museum.
Strange things can happen when you’re a (sorta) public figure — and the Web encourages weirdness. Once someone altered my Wikipedia entry to read: “Greg Cook wrote many comics but all were rejected by the human society. He was later killed in 2001 because his works were so bad.”
Senate proposal may severely restrict internet freedoms.
A bill making its way through Congress proposes to give the U.S. government authority over all networks considered part of the nation’s critical infrastructure. Under the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009, the president would have the authority to shut down Internet traffic to protect national security.
Please do feed the artist. My ebay auctions continue. I draw because my patrons pay me to!
“But it’s not a knockoff… it’s a homage!”
re: the magicians and intellectual property: Yeah, Valentino (no relation to the vastly more talented comic artist) is a failed stage magician from Reno. He makes his living screwing up other people’s hard work. Real magicians take weeks and months trying to make a trick work and to have some jackwad ruin it is the equivalent of the guy who screamed the spoiler of HBP at the kids in line for the midnight book release (widely seen on Youtube). He was actually responsible for blowing a trick performed by a couple who had a long running show in Reno; it was a spectacular trick but once he did it on his show (he bribed a stagehand for the info) it pretty much ruined their version of it and they ended up having to close the show since that was their signature trick.
So yeah, not a lot of magicians would miss him if something happened to him, that’s for sure. I believe he’s blackballed from the Magic Castle too.
I love magic, and my buddy Bill Wu has taken me to The Magic Castle, where he is a member.
People who are big fat spoilers are big fat jerks.
I do not want to know the magic trick, I want to enjoy the show.
It’s kinda like the plot from The Prestige, ‘aint it?
Nifty movie, BTW.
I’m usually curious as to how certain tricks/illusions are done but deep down, I don’t really want to know. I just want to, for a brief moment, not have the answers.
“The Prestige” was a wonderful movie – great story about obsession and the extreme dedication to one’s craft that someone can have.
That Orwellian idea for the internet is just ripe for abuse by politicians. It could wind up being what China does and block various sites that are considered “dissident’.
That whole mess with Google got me wondering that what if some authors are not members of those associations in the lawsuit, can they still have their work protected from Google making it readily available?
Regarding Annie Liebovitz, I still can’t understand how some of these people can rack up millions of dollars of debt without noticing until much later. It’d be a shame if she lost the rights to her work.
The Annie Leibovitz debacle has a lot to do with a severely botched renovation on her home in NYC. I read several articles about it, but am too bleary-eyed today to track them back down. The situation read like a perfect storm of house money pit hell.
Authors may opt out or in of the Google settlement, whether they are guild members or not. I am not at all sure if this settlement is going to go through.
I’ve tried to emphasize to people that while I appreciate the sentiment behind it, the execution of the deal is not to my liking. I feel the same way about the Orphan Works Bill. I like the idea, but it’s a very bad piece of legislation.
BTW:
If I have $10 million dollars in assets and $2 million in operating debts, then I am doing well with my business.
If my assets suddenly lose their value (such as a stock market crash) and I have $1 million in assets left and $2 million dollars in debt, I am bankrupt.
I have assets on paper, such as my original art and copyrights. If the market for art crashes, and my copyrights and trademarks have no value someday, half my net worth disappears.
As with a lot of ideas/legislation – good in theory but ripe for abuse in practice.
That’s a shame about Annie Leibovitz in that case. In the articles I read, the house renovation wasn’t really touched upon so I got the impression this was an example of poor money management that spiraled out of control.
With all these sorts of legislation that can hamstring (and that’s putting it mildly) creative people, it is patronizing for some plebeians to think artists and writers have it “easy” since they just sit at their desk all day produce what some dolts don’t consider to be essential.
Well, I think Leibovitz did get over her head, but it seems the collapsing financial markets exacerbated the problem. Apparently, she bought two houses in NYC and attempted to combine them into one big house with studio. She had some kind of major problems with neighbors and zoning. It just sounded like a huge mess.
I detest the promotion of artists as mildly crazy idiots who can’t balance a checkbook. Creators are small business people who do not have a staff handling their taxes, insurance, investments, and other needs. The average person can’t handle all of those things very well, either. They rely on employers with established programs to do those things for them, and have employees who specialize in those areas.
I had a very interesting conversation with one of my favorite illustrators the other day about this, and I intend to blog about it as soon as I can.
The need for creators to have support for these services makes them vulnerable to exploitation. It is very difficult for creators to focus on their work and on their business, and to do both well.
If they are unable to do both things well, they have to rely on help. And that makes them ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous people.
Another factor in the Leibovitz case is the death of her partner, Susan Sontag. While she did inherit Susan’s estate, as she was not her legal wife, much of it was eaten in estate taxes. There are complex issues here: two creators sharing the unique financial issues involved in creative income, the disparity in inheritance law between GLBT people and their spouses vs. those who can legally marry, the complexities of inheritance tax in general, and the aforementioned problems with the neighbors, often harrowing in and of themselves.
My point is not to jump on a soapbox about GLBT marriage rights (okay, just a little). My main point is to echo Colleen’s frustration about the stereotypes of the lives of creative people. Similar complexities have shown up in the relationships of people I know in so-called “standard” callings of life, and I rarely see the problems attributed to a character flaw caused by their LACK of creativity.
I love your comments, bodefan.
I especially love the point you emphasize about the lack of business acumen in artists being perceived as some innate character flaw in artists.
If some guy trying to run a store fails at running a store, people don’t rush forward with their opinions that merchants are of poor character. But artists are bombarded with messages about what a bunch of flakes and weirdos they are.
Professional artists are businesspeople. Most businesses fail. There’s nothing in the “artistic temperament” that makes artists any dumber, or less able to add a column of numbers than anyone else.
An artist must juggle a wide variety of skills to be a professional artist. These skills have nothing to do with making art.