Letter to Access Copyright about Internet Copying Not qualifying for Reprography fees for Artists in Canada...
Hello,
As a member of CARCC, a visual artist, I would like a clarification
of Access Copyright's position on any art visuals, jpegs, artist
websites, blogs, online albums, or other content that is available
online on the World Wide Web, in terms of
reprography fees...
I have been told by CARCC that not only will I receive less money
this year because I have opted to publish digitally as opposed to
publishing on trees, but that none of my digital publications qualify
for reprography fees...at all...
Can Access Copyright please clarify this position & direct me
to the person or persons in charge of this decision, if in fact, it is
entirely true, that nothing of my work on the internet in the past 15
years qualifies as similar in any which way to the vulnerability of
photocopying, which is widely & internationally legislated...
Thank you, Sari Grove
p.s. I am contacting via the Media Division of Access Copyright on
the assumption that any information I receive via email can be
re-published online for free, since digital copying is apparently free
for anyone who would like to copy my art work...Or are there rules about
digital rights that Access Copyright might want to tell me about?
Thank you...(I have already spoken to my representative in Ottawa
from Carcc about this issue & am now asking Access Copyright directly
for an answer, since apparently the buck has been passed to you, so to
speak...)
![[Get Copyright Permissions]](http://license.icopyright.net/images/icopy-w.gif){kind=small}
Click here for copyright permissions!
Hello, this is Sari Grove writing: I DID get a response from Access Copyright, &, because they seem to want to answer online, in fairness, I am adding here what their response to my letter was...Of course, publishing someone's email comments is borderline, but I feel that they want their answer heard so I am putting it here...If, of course, that is problematic for Access Copyright, please tell me, & I, of course, will unpublish their response here...My feeling on the subject is, that opening up this discussion online can only help the matter, since there are so many artists in Canada who are not even aware that there is an issue...Debate can be good for good things...
Hello Sari:
Most of the revenues associated with Payback are related to paper copying licences and that is why your digital works are not included in the Payback program this year. We know that many of our creators and publishers are creating born digital works and we hope to licence this for them in the future.
Thank you for your inquiry.
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-here is something I wrote in response to the subject of making reproductions...as a thought, an afterthought, perhaps digital works should fall into this category...(things you choose to publish online...)(this was in the LinkedIn group Art Business)...
In fact, the traditional model was that the original was so desirable that making prints was of necessity, because so many people wanted the same image...It is not about reputation, it is about having one painting that is so good that demand is too high...Beginners can have that happen to them too...Making prints because your originals aren't moving is a bit like putting the cart before the horse...But everyone is welcome to make their choices, & that is why I find life & art still interesting...It is often the mistakes people make that make them more endearing...& believe me Steve, there are more than two points of view on this subject...
Generally speaking, I find the plethora of reproductions on the market distressing, not to mention the ones with faked signatures, combined with the fact that most of these things are actually works of craft by a printer & his or her machine, not at all a work by the artist...
There is a print on display at Canadian Tire at Yonge & Davenport in Toronto, signed "by Tom Thomson" with the title "The Jack Pine" & numbered 27/700...Tom Thomson never made reproductions before he died, & he rarely signed anything, not even his originals...I spoke to the manager about this, (since it is for their children's charity Jumpstart), an auction, & he suggested the word "by" allowed for the forgery...Teri Franks of Fine Art Registry.com just won a huge court case in Michigan for outing Park West gallery's practice of selling common Dali prints on Royal carribean Cruise ships which had been fake signed "Dali" at the bottom, which raised their selling price from 100 dollars each to a thousand dollars each...It is turf fraught with corruption & bad intent, & money should not be the top intention for any artist-only because they will make less with that goal in mind...(The more you try for that, the less you seem to get...)
Sincerely Sari Grove
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