Welcome, Art Students!
on April 26th, 2010Your teachers inform me that you have been given an assignment: READ COLLEEN’S BLOG!
So, welcome to the students of the Center For Cartoon Studies, The Minneapolis College of Art, The Art Institute, The Ringling College, and other arty places of note.
I’m going to make things easy on you this week by posting links directly to articles which will be of use to you.
This will save you lots of time searching about for the meaty posts which will turn you into Teh Uber-Awesome Wise Creators of the Future.
It will also save me blogging time. Which is a time management aware-behavior, a very important skill for creators.
Late Payments Cost Creators: an overview of the REAL cost of lagging invoices.
An unpaid debt of $1,000 is not an unpaid debt of $1,000. If the freelancer is carrying debt on credit cards with an average interest rate of 15%, that unpaid debt of $1,000 over the course of two years just cost an additional $347.35.
Consequently, for every $1,000 the client has not paid, the freelancers have lost that $347.35 in interest, and the face value of the $1,000 has dropped to $652.65. In only two years, the $1,000 has lost more than a third of its value.
Book Packagers Behaving Badly: just because you have a book contract, that does NOT mean the publisher is on the hook for what happens to you.
Dearest Freelancer, I hate to break it to you, but when your creep of a book packager attempts to dazzle you with their connection to the Big Name Publisher, you do realize that you do NOT work for the Big Name Publisher, you actually work for the creep of a book packager. You do not have ANY agreement with the publisher. You have an agreement with the PACKAGER. Therefore, you do not get any perks, any cache, any brownie points whatsoever for your credit with Big Name Publisher. The packager does.
Working on spec usually sucks, but publishers who threaten freelancers with lawsuits for spurious reasons suck even more. This comment thread WOULD NOT DIE, and it is valuable for info as well as major snarkity snark guffaws. Do not miss!
I wrote about your original solicitation for work, described as a blind email. This has been pointed out over and over again as well. Your claim that you actually knew “most” of the creators you solicited may be true (I really don’t care,) but “knowing” a creator and sending them an email does not confer legal rights of confidentiality to you.
You opine that your poorly written book press releases are the subject of derision, but I fail to see how anyone could defend them as quality work.
Be that as it may, the press releases and the solicitation are two different matters, though they both call into question your professional standards (and I recommend a rewrite on that press material). There is nothing in my post or subsequent comments that state you sent the job solicitation out as a press release. It is clearly stated – and redundantly redundant – that your solicitation for work was in an email.
For someone with a personal dialogue with Al Bigley, your company was quick to threaten to sue him. What a pal.
Some interesting follow-up in this rambling post about plagiarism. Not my best blogging, but there are useful bits of info in the comments thread about fair use law.
Also, if Leifeld worked on a project for Marvel and swiped the work of another Marvel artist, well, that is plagiarism but not copyright violation.
Legally, Marvel is the author of the work, not Rob. Marvel owns everything Marvel produces. Marvel can’t take from Marvel.
If you work for Marvel and swipe something from an artist working for another company, then you expose Marvel to liability. It’s not a good thing to do to your client. But I can’t think of any instance of DC suing over an artist swipe at Marvel (or elsewhere). Can anyone point to an instance of same? I don’t mean old news like the Superman/Shazam. Something recent?
I know of one instance where an artist was blacklisted from Marvel for years for swiping an album cover. Marvel was sued by the singer and had to pay a big settlement. And so did the artist.
Plagiarism and copyright…not the same thing.
PART II in this series of links for students. This crop is about TIME MANAGEMENT.
“Uh… Perfesser Doran… Will this be on the final?”
“Perfesser… What would happen if Rogue kissed the Absorbing Man?”
“Professor, do you think female artists have the skill and understanding necessary to properly draw male power fantasies?” (You then proceed to draw Clark Kent as Burt Reynolds in Cosmopolitan, on the blackboard. Numerous female students whip out there phones to take pictures.)
“Professor, what about the ‘rich and famous’ contract?”
BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!