The new thinking is that the word “committee” is no longer in vogue and perhaps it conjures up Congress or the PTA.  Whereas TEAM conjure up teamwork, or the “go get ‘em” mentality. Corporate worlds have replaced the old words with the new for awhile now. But the question is : Has anything changed? Or is it still just one or two people looking for their little moment of authority?

We found it interesting when our county art council, funded by the state and memberships, began to shift towards the team mentality. Oddly enough that mentality was already there in the form of common good as a group of hardworking, unpaid volunteer Board members gave up many a Saturday to bring an obselete building and dying membership back into  the light. There was that “just roll up your shirtsleeves and get it done” mentality and comraderie that did not need to be enhanced or clarified  by a “committee” or “Team” tagline. The work got done in amazing time with amazing results.

Fast forward to a few new members fresh from corporate America (oh my we know how that works), with a Napoleon syndrome, and all of a sudden we are looking at charts and graphs that look like a family ancestry page and new papers to sign, rights squelched and TEAMS.   And now, nothing is getting done but a lot of talk.

What just happened? How could someone take a good idea, a working grass roots plan and  indoctrinate it with corporate laws, bylaws, adendums, control intellectual rights, muzzle  ideas and smother creativity-all in the name of “TEAM growth?” Worse of all, only we saw and spoke up about the “emperor’s clothes.” How could sane people not see this for what it was….and is?  There is always a danger in removing the checks and balances in a democratic art environment….

Oh wait, we’re taking about Art right?

“The changes have been alarming! My talented yet sensible son has changed his appearance, his attitude, quotes Lenin and promotes Marxism. I ask him  about his job prospects but he just dismisses his father and I with some comment about “You don’t get it, It’s not about the money.” Yet he’s $45,000 in debt with school loans. How do we get him out of there? It’s awful-it’s like some kind of cult!”

During another hour long phone conversation I had to repeat my advice from before-there was nothing that she could do. It was not him calling me asking for advice; it was her. She had purchased our ebooks with the hope of him gaining insight but he had so far refused to even listen to them. Our August newsletter addresses the issues of what is happening in the Arts programs in our nation’s liberal arts colleges and universities. The leanings towards socialism, communism and Marxist views is certainly not new. The churning out of students unprepared to earn a living in the world with their painting or printing degrees is not new. The accumulation of tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt is not new.  The unhappy views of unhappy professors is not new.

So what is happening? The mother had been told that students’ brains were not maturing until they were in their 30′s today. What sort of bullshit is that? Parents and schools today are turning out a whole generation of whiny, dependent child/adults , thanks, in part, to their 24/7 hovering and  dumbed down, federally funded  education systems.

This blog is not long enough for the “rest of the story” so pick up the rest of it in our free newsletter!

Each of these developments involves an effort by third parties to define artists’ work and/or royalties as orphaned property, and to assert the right, in the name of the public interest or class representation, to exploit that work commercially or to appropriate the royalties for use at their sole discretion.So far, judges have affirmed that copyright is an individual, not a collective right, and that unless one explicitly transfers that right, no business or organization can automatically acquire it by invoking an orphaned property premise. Now the challenge for artists will be to see that Congress does not pass legislation to permit what the courts have so far denied.

So the news below in the article is good news indeed!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Graphic Artists Guild Lawsuit Dismissed

Last week the New York State Supreme Court, New York County, dismissed all claims in a million dollar lawsuit brought by the Graphic Artists Guild (GAG) against the Illustrators’ Partnership of America (IPA) and five named individuals.
In the lawsuit, GAG asserted claims for defamation and interference with contractual relations, alleging that IPA had interfered with a “business relationship” GAG had entered into that enabled GAG to collect orphaned reprographic royalties derived from the licensing of illustrators’ work. GAG alleged that efforts by IPA to create a collecting society to return lost royalties to artists “interfered” with GAG’s “business” of appropriating these orphaned fees.
In her decision, Judge Debra James ruled that statements made by the Illustrators’ Partnership and the other defendants were true; that true statements cannot be defamatory; that illustrators have a “common interest” in orphaned income; and that a “common-interest privilege” may arise from both a right and a duty to convey relevant information, however contentious, to others who share that interest or duty.
Regarding a key statement at issue in the lawsuit: that GAG had taken over one and a half million dollars of illustrators’ royalties “surreptitiously,” the judge wrote:
“Inasmuch as the statement [by IPA] was true, [GAG]‘s claim cannot rest on allegations of a reckless disregard of whether it was false or not. Truthful and accurate statements do not give rise to defamation liability concerns.”  (Emphasis added.)
And she noted:
“The plaintiff Guild has conceded that it received foreign reproductive royalties and that it does not distribute any of the money to artists.”

The complete article is here:

http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2011/04/graphic-artists-guild-lawsuit-dismissed_27.html