THINGS I'VE LEARNED 1
Below is first in a series on things I've learned about managing my life and business in the arts:
Hold in your mind somewhere that no matter what anyone says or promises, it's just talk, just words. Nothing happens until it happens. Maybe it will happen, maybe it won't. You can push and pull, and pray and whine, but usually all you can do is wait and see. We'll see. We'll see. Actions speak louder than words.
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You don't have the job until the check has cleared the bank. In the arts, especially working for small companies, it's quite possible to do a lot of work and never receive payment, or hear from the company again. I just sent off a ton of work--will I get paid? I just deposited a check from a small company, will it clear? We'll see. We will see.
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Some years back I did some nice black and white sequential art pages for a guy in Canada based on a story he had written. He was to publish it, and I would do it for free. I did it to get in some more work in print, and it was a good story. Towards the end I was experiencing flare-ups with a long term chronic illness I had, and struggled to work on it consistently, and I think he may have started to lose interest. Still maintaining contact with him, I eventually finished the story, mailed off the originals, but then never heard from him again. That was a tough blow. Weeks of fine work wasted. Things like this do happen. Make quality scans or copies of everything you do as a backup, and as a record for yourself. Better yet, more and more companies now want you to send scans of the finished work instead of the originals. This is great because the originals can now be safe with you. Your originals are your lifeblood.
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Realize that Work For Hire, or Work Made For Hire, has some tough limitations. A Work For Hire situation is just that, you are hired to perform work on someone else's creative property, and you have no rights to that property, even if you make a ton of money for them. You can draw Batman but you can't drive the Batmobile. I worked on an intellectual property owned by Universal Studios and when it was over all I had rights to were putting the work in my portfolio or selling the originals. But I knew this when I went into the job that it was Work For Hire. Work For Hire can be a good way to work on a high profile project with a pre-existing fan base and get your name out there, but you can't do much more than that.
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Contracts can difficult for the artist,because the visual artist mind is often not geared to follow the dry, complicated sound of legal terminology. Whether you're in the fine arts or commercial arts, or signing applications for a job, or signing the lease on an apartment or loan papers for your house, or signing privacy statements for your doctor or insurance agent--you are signing a contract. Signing a contract means you're agreeing to uphold the letter of the contract, the rules, the conduct, etc. You will be signing them often in your life, and if you're going to be working for companies and creating intellectual properties you must learn how to deal with them. What I do when I get a contract is shut off everything around me--no noise, no interruptions, and just sit and focus and really try to comprehend exactly what it means. These things can be 6 to 12 pages long, or more! Take notes, write questions in the margins, and highlight important clauses. Then get it clear in your mind if it's acceptable to you, and if not, get clarification, or get an attorney.
Read the contract. Know what you're signing. Get an attorney to check it over if you have to. It's always written in the owner/publisher's favor, and to protect their interests. I read every word. If I don't understand something I call and ask for clarification, or a re-wording of the contract clause. Publishers will usually re-word something or negotiate a re-wording if it's not right for you. They're bringing you aboard because they like your work and want your abilities to enhance their line of products, they're usually not going to let a contract clause get in the way of that. You may even be able to write your own stipulations to go with the contract and have them sign that.
Your originals are your lifeblood. Try as hard as you can to maintain creative control and copyright control over everything you create. Try to word contracts so your originals will be returned to you. Try to give away as few rights as possible to a piece of your work, and if you do, try to make all contracts you sign have an expiration date as to when you can republish your originals again. Strive to own and reuse everything even beyond the day you die (so your loved ones can continue to enjoy the fruits of your efforts). If you must sell all rights to a work investigate the worth of those rights, as it is almost always more than if you were to sell limited rights.
If you conjure up something that is a big hit with people you will very quickly have big money giants working to pry the rights towards your intellectual properties out of your hands. If your works make it into the Hollywood sphere make them relinquish creative control to you only (if this is important to you). Marketers often have only one thing on their agenda and that is to make money, your visionary interests don't really count. They may twist your creation until it is devoid of any real substance, and do it for their own purposes. Nowadays artists have more power in negotiating and handling their creative properties.
Go the distance to find out what is necessary to secure the control over your properties before you release them to the public. You can register your creations with the U.S. Copyright office or even mail them to yourself, getting the postal stamp, and never opening the envelope. These can help in a court hearing, although the mailings to yourself are less effective. I, and most everyone else, usually do not officially copyright everything I create, it's more time and money than I want to deal with. The actual published work is an official copyright, and work on a website can be copyrighted. An intellectual property is deemed copyrighted the moment it's physically created, but that copyright can be easily snatched away from a struggling artist with a family to feed, or even stolen with little recourse on your part.
With the internet it's easy to download an image into your hard drive. I've seen a few of my images even used for other people's logos or personal little blogs. I'm willing to accept some of this, but if they ever start to make money off of my creations, then the hammer comes down, because I did all the work and I decide how I want my work to be used. Often just emailing a formal letter can stop the use, because many people don't even know they're violating a law. Or, mailing a formal letter and offering a win-win money making situation can be appealing if someone realizes they will have to side with you or desist in the use of the property.
Images on the internet are uploaded at 72 dots per inch (dpi). When downloaded and printed out the resolution is poor because quality printing starts around 300 dpi. So you don't have to worry too much about someone stealing your images and making money off of them in some kind of physical print form. It's mostly the people who download your ideas and images and employ them on their internet sites or products that you might be concerned about.
There are many publications dealing with these issues, one need only spend a little research time to benefit in the long run. Go to your favorite search engine and type in something like "copyright control for artists," or "intellectual property," or "register copyright." It can be dry reading for an artist mind, but one day, you may be verrrry glad you did.
The Graphic Artists Guild link: http://www.gag.org/
The U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, DC: http://www.copyright.gov/register/
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