MUST DEPEND ON THE COMPENSATION THEY RECEIVE FOR EACH WORK INDIVIDUAL STRUGGLE FOR LITERARY AND ARTISTIC EXPRESSION. I AM HOPEFUL THAT THESE HEARINGS WILL MARK THE BEGINNING OF A THOROUGH INVESTIGATION INTO WHETHER MANY OF THESE INDIVIDUALS BELIEVE THEY ARE UNDER PRESSURE TO SIGN WORK-FOR-HIRE CONTRACTS IF IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THE DIFFICULT GOAL OF PUBLICATION. WE MUST BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL IN WEIGHING THE RIGHTS Herb Brammeier, Jr. CHAIRPERSON, Amicido Francisioni CHAIRPERSON, Julie Frankel CHAIRPERSON, MARKET PROMOTION EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Howard Cruse Don Martin Lou Myers Mort Walker Michael C. Witte EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR D. K. Holland Executive Vice President 30 East 20th Street Dear Debbie: As you know, the Cartoonists Guild has been strongly opposed to the work-for-hire provision of the copyright law from 1978 on and helped to initiate the Ad Hoc Committee To Preserve Creators Rights, the first coalition of arts organizations formed to lobby against workfor-hire and educate freelance creators about the insidious dangers of their agreeing to such contracts. In this context, we see it as a major victory that hearings have been granted on work-for-hire in front of the U.S. Senate in late August. It is indeed a wonderful opportunity to dramatize both the basic inequity of W4H and the pressing need for the clause to be deleted entirely from the copyright law. The Cartoonists Guild, of course, endorses and supports the position of the Graphic Artists Guild on W4H and at the Senate hearings. Specifically, this means that our 250 freelance cartoonist members living and working in more than 30 states across the country are absolutely opposed to W4H and will do everything in our power to convince members of Congress to eliminate the work-for-hire loophole from the copyright law. Unfortunately, however, there is not sufficient time for the CG to gather written testimony from cartoonists who have lost income, selfesteem and/or artwork because of signing a W4H contract even though we can confirm to you that this has been the case in our field. - Since August is traditionally a vacation period for our members, we will also not be able to send a representative to the Senate hearings. Notwithstanding this, we would most appreciate your passing along a - Please keep us informed of what happens at the hearings and how we can continue to work with you and all the other arts groups that share our common concern. RW/jz Best regards, Ron Wolin Executive Director I know that Senate hearings are to be held soon, As a freelance writer and photographer, my research A typical "work-for-hire" agreement is arranged to I had to resign as regional correspondent of the publi- By contrast, I write for several other specialized business publications, often sharing and adapting ideas and re-selling photos and text (with or without modification to fit interests of the audience), and can do so because of the protection of the Copyright law and the absence of "work-for-hire" agreements. Thus, I can share ideas and information more widely with those who need this information, and yet do so for compensation which is affordable to publications and fair to me as the originator. I hope that you and your fellow Senators will stop My personal loss directly traceable to the misuse of the "work-for-hire" provisions has been minimal thus far, and the work I resigned was a small part of my overall writing activity. But the threat is real, not just to me but to thousands of writers, photographers and other creative persons. We can't afford to create on a "one sale only" policy. Thank you. Sincerely, Jim Norland 83-9 As President of the San Francisco Society of Illustrators, I am writing to express our opposition to the abusive use of work-for-hire contracts between art buyers and freelance artists. It is our opinion that the work-for-hire clause is an unfair loophole in the 1978 Copyright Law. This clause was originally intended for specific instances wherein the artist is a contributor to a copyrighted work ie artists working for or with Walt Disney Studios. With increasing frequency this clause is being applied to general free-lance commissions; thereby contradicting the intent of the (1978) Copyright Law often referred to as the "Creators Law". In working under a work-for-hire contract the artist relinquishes any and all rights to the commissioned work. Legally, the artbuyer assumes the role of "creator", the artist then ceasing to exist. A work-for-hire contract leaves the door open for obvious usage abuses. A major factor in determining a fair price for a piece of artwork is the extent of it's use ie: local or national distribution, editorial or advertising market, re-run or reprinting of the book / ad, and intended size (importance). Under such a contract an artist can, and has, found that a piece originally commissioned (and priced) as a minor work has been extensively used as a major visual ie: book cover, billboard. It's use may also been extended to an accompanying marketing and advertising campaign. Though the value of the artwork to the project has dramatically increased, the artbuyer is under no obligation to pay any additional money to the artist. Increasingly we are seeing that the artist is being penalized for doing work beyond the expectations of the artbuyer. |