Bloghorn posts tagged “copyright”

You may have seen the above in this week's edition of Private Eye, in the Street of Shame column, which focuses on the misdeeds of British newspapers.

When "Cartoonist Idol" was launched, there was much discussion behind the scenes at the Professional Cartoonists' Organisation (Shurely shome correction - Ed) on our members' forum.

There was a great deal of scepticism, as professional cartoonists have all seen this kind of attempt to get work using competitions before. What we did not see, however, were any terms and conditions for the promised employment. Until we knew the outcome of the contest we gave the i the benefit of the doubt. Many professionals, members of the PCO and otherwise, decided to give it a shot.

Here on the Bloghorn, where we try to be positive about cartooning rather than negative (difficult though that can sometimes be) we reported the shortlisted cartoonists, noting that many were PCO members.

Once the winning PCO members told us what they had been offered, however, we wrote to the i and that led to a conversation with the paper. The conversation was amicable, but the i wasn't budging.

While we expected that the money offered would be poor, the PCO could not accept the demands made on copyright and exclusivity. We approached Private Eye as we thought they would find it an interesting, if depressing, story. They agreed and we hope you do too.

The Bloghorn is always interested in drawing that makes the presentation of knowledge more fun.

Our friends at The Comics Grid hit both of these nails when they asked Emily Goodhand, copyright and compliance officer at the University of Reading, to review a graphic novel on a subject that can make grown cartoonists scream.

Emily told us:

Copyright is not an easy subject to convey via any medium, given that it deals with intangible (unseen) property rights. So what about using drawing to help people learn about copyright?

Well, we live in a visual world; a picture often says more than a paragraph of text. And the simpler aspects of copyright translate well to images.

It is unlikely though that copyright education could ever be delivered by images alone, but it’s certainly an avenue worth exploring further -- especially as it’s high time copyright broke free of its rather dull stereotype.

The Bloghorn says: go read Emily’s review of Bound by Law.

Attributed to Keith Aoki, James Boyle and Jennifer Jenkins under a Creative Commons Sharealike License

Does anyone want to make a UK version, following the recent Hargreaves review of copyright which we noted here?

You can download the full comic from here.

The Bloghorn is made on behalf of the UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation

The appearance of a cartoon in a newspaper or upon a website usually produces a frisson of joy for the cartoonist who made it – unless it has appeared without their permission.

The American cartoonist Stephanie Piro, who had this unfortunate experience recently, told The Bloghorn what happened – and more importantly what to do about it should it happen to you:

A couple of months ago a cartoonist colleague, emailed me to ask if the Guardian news website was a client of mine as she recognised my work there. I told her they weren't and then followed the link she provided.

Reconstructed image of the licensing infringement

This was, of course, upsetting as it appeared to have come from here or here.

Over the years I have had several major instances of my work being used without my permission. As my website rates for a single image are reasonable, I was surprised someplace as established as The Guardian would use an image without first contacting the artist and paying for it.

I eventually succeeded in contacting The Guardian through its Readers’ Editor and sent an invoice. After more prompting, I finally heard from a woman who was in charge of the books site on the Guardian site who blamed a third-party organisation and apologised.

This was unacceptable to me. When I threatened to spread the word to the NCS (the US National Cartoonists' Society), the PCO (the UK Professional Cartoonists' Organisation) and all the professional cartooning boards I belong to ... then they responded to my invoice.

This was more meaningful than a simple apology.

The Bloghorn commends this excellent example of how you should look after your work. We also credit The Guardian and their contracted third-party agency for reacting to Stephanie’s messages and by eventually promising to pay for the use of her work over the previous nine months.

If you have anything helpful to add about the best way to manage your business interests please add it to the comments below. If you are a UK-based professional cartoonist you may also want to consider applying to join the PCO.

The Bloghorn is made on behalf of the UK’s Professional Cartoonists' Organisation