All my nerdy friends should know this one -
off topic, but very important to me - and possibly to you!
Today I am asking you to please help me, and other artists who share their work with you on the Internet.
There is a bill making it’s way through Congress. Bill #2913, the so-called “Orphan Works” bill. This bill would allow any company to use artwork without compensating the artist if they have made a “due diligence” effort (which is not defined in the bill) to locate the artist.
What this means is this. Your child colors one of my coloring pages. She does such a lovely job, you scan it and put it up on your blog. A couple of people see it and like it so much they copy the image and put it on their webpage or blog without crediting the source. A company exec sees it. He likes it, too. But no one gave credit, so he doesn’t know whose art it is. Oh well. The company puts it on a million t-shirts. No one, not me, not you, hot your child, gets a dime for the art.
I also do clip art. I ask for credit, but not everyone remembers and I’m not going to go around knocking heads over it. So someone likes, say, my drawings of boxer dogs. She puts one on her MySpace page. Again, a company exec sees it. He might even write her and ask who the artist was, but she doesn’t remember. Out go a million boxer dog stickers with my art. I don’t get a dime.
Your artistic 12 year old son draws a neat dragon. He scans it and shares it on his Deviant Art page, but as advised by his wise parents, he doesn’t have any personal identifiable info on his account. Again, a company exec sees it. He can’t identify or contact the artist (your well protected son). Oh well. A few thousand posters are sold with the dragon your son drew. No one gets paid for the art.
What can you or I do if that happens? Not much. Try to hire a lawyer who can fight against a big corps law firm, when there are a million loopholes left in the law. Not much chance we’d win.
I am trying to make a living, however humble, with my art. I provide coloring pages and clip art free to individuals, families, non-profit organizations, and often even other small business people like myself. Even the smallest royalty would be a great windfall of income to me. Or if you want one of my boxer dogs on a sticker, you can buy it through my own little Zazzle store where at least I do get a small royalty.
Never mind me, the bottom line is artists deserve to be paid for the use of their work - just like you deserve to be paid for the hours you put in at your job, whatever it may be. We do not deserve to be punished for sharing our work freely by allowing big corps to make a profit without paying us a dime for our contribution to it. How big is that contribution? Do you buy a t-shirt with a boxer dog on it because you like the picture of the boxer dog, or because you wanted any old t-shirt that size?
So, please, help me, help other artists. Take one minute from your day today and sign this petition. Take maybe an hour (it took me 30 minutes this morning) to write your congress members (You can find out who they are, and how to contact them here) and ask them to vote against this bill. Most of them have no idea what it is really about, or what the implications are for artists. You can read more about the bill here and a more detailed report with further links here. Or a really scary (for me as an artist) detailed article on what this bill will allow is here
Thank you so much for your time, and for your help. I’ll be spending a couple of hours on this today, sharing these links at all my blogs and social sites, and then I can get down to drawing some new coloring pages for you.
Summer Fey Foovay
Filed under editorial rant | Comment (0)Stray Dogs are Living it up in Moscow
Being a stray dog in Moscow these days is not as bad as you might think. Stray dogs commonly ride the Metro and are regarded with some affection by most Moscovites. They even have a website dedicated to them. I wish I could read russian, but even without the text - the pictures speak for themselves of the gentle acceptance and caring for these stray dogs.
There’s even a group of zoologists studying the cities stray dogs and their adaptations to life in the city. Since the Soviet regime has fallen, the dogs are doing so well for scraps that they’ve gotten sleek and well-fed and even become a little bit picky about what they’ll eat! The dogs have learned to cross with pedestrians at cross-walks and also learned a little trick to get a person to drop their lunch so the dog can eat it!
Next thing you know, our strays here in the U.S. will learn to board a plane headed for Moscow…
Summer
Filed under animals in the news, dogs, heartwarming | Comment (0)Przewalski Horses in the news
Cross-posted from my JustHorseCrazy Blog
A few days ago I saw a news story about a Przewalski Horse who had undergone a reverse vasectomy. The surgery was successful and it is hoped he will soon be bred to a suitable mare. The Przewalski is our last truly wild horse, and was pronounced extinct in the wild in 1970. However, there was a small population surviving in zoos and parks around the world. Through careful breeding this unique animal has been keep alive, and is now being reintroduced into the wild in Mongolia.
I have a real soft spot for wild horses of all kinds, and so this inspired me to do a few coloring pages for Color-Your-Own.com of the Przewalski Horses. Perhaps they will inspire others to help preserve this important species.
Summer Fey Foovay
Filed under endangered species, heartwarming, horses, wildlife, zoo animals | Comment (0)A poem for a dog - and ecards, too
Motto For a Dog
by Arthur Guiterman
I love this little house because
It offers after dark,
A pause for rest, a rest for paws,
A place to moor my bark.
Cute, and sweet, isn’t it? Perfect for a “gotcha day” e card - which is why I added it to the poems over at my fre-ecards.com site. Lots of free ecards there with dogs, horses, cats, all sorts of nature themes. I really hate the way all the ecard sites now try to deluge you with ads and pop-ups and membership and all that junk - so my website really is just free ecards. Go see. 
Summer Fey Foovay
Filed under other fun stuff | Comment (0)
