Fan Sites – How they help the artist publicize.
Below is my side of a Facebook discussion about Fan sites. Someone found a fan site that posted a lot of artist’s works publically BUT ALSO GAVE CREDIT to every artist on every piece. This is different than someone stealing the work and selling copies OR claiming to own the copyright or even take credit for it.
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Laz: I see it as free promotion. It’s not like the site doesn’t give the artist – credit. The only thing I’d do is contact the person and try to get a link to my website attached to every one of my images. It’s not a negative to be appreciated and promoted under your own name.
Laz: If it’s posted on the web it’s published for public use and consumption. If it were published in a magazine and someone cut it out of that magazine and put it on display as your work with your name attached would you still demand they ask permission first? Obviously not.
Laz: If you don’t want CERTAIN works you have done to be public, then you should ask the person nicely to remove it under that explanation… but there isn’t an artist living or dead that was mortified about the popularity of a piece or pieces they despised or thought were junk. Alphonse Mucha hated his opera posters. He thought they were ‘pop art crap’ and wanted the world to remember him for his Czech Epic paintings… and how many people today actually know what those look like let alone how many even know those paintings exist.
Laz: As I said, contact him and politely ask for him to add a link to your site. If he’s a fan, that shouldn’t be a problem. He might be slow – but he’s not profiting from it on that site. Now – if it were an EBAY site, that’s different. The main thing is that people aren’t going to his site and saying “Hey! I can get this for free instead of paying for it!” The reality is (and this has been proven from a decade of market research) that if a web-viewer is a fan, when they see art they like, they’ll find a way to purchase something from you – if not today, then tomorrow. If they aren’t a fan and still download it – guess what, they’ll still share it with other promoting you to people who WILL be fans. The marketing terms are “word of mouth” and “secondary decision makers” and “viral marketing”.
Laz: Actual case: In the 90′s, Mercedes Benz started this massive legal campaign against everyone who used their name and logo and photos of their vehicles on the web… REALLY!!! They attacked AOL, Yahoo (yes they did) and even individual car enthusiasts. My firm even got a cease and desist letter from their legal team because we built a site auctioning used cars and they claimed that advertising that some of their cars up for auction was using their brand without their permission and our client was making money from their reputation… They even refused us linking to their website! Boy they had their head up their ass. 2 years and $millions of market research later, they found out that their brand recognition jumped dramatically amongst web-users who frequented used automobile related web-sites and even when those people bought used Mercedes, they still had to buy Mercedes PARTS and then started buying Mercedes brand merchandise and bragged all over to their friends about how great their Mercedes was which spilled over into MORE sales.
Laz: My point is that you have to look at the bigger picture of your business. You’re not living hand-to-mouth on every print and reproduction of your hand made art TODAY – you are living off of the art people will buy TOMORROW and the next day and the one after that. These people are art fans and they are helping spread the word about you and your art to potential customers. They are doing nothing but helping your business – and thinking of them as criminals will hurt your reputation among collectors who will start to fear your wrath rather than promote you. That is deliberately restricting your growth – and that doesn’t make sense.
Thanks for the post. This is a refreshing change from most of the stuff I read. Your outlook on fan sites, that the word-of-mouth advertising actually pays dividends, is enlightened. Not to mention good business sense.
I wish the law supported the practice. It *should* support it through a generous interpretation of what constitutes fair use, but as things stand now, fan sites that use copyrighted material, whether or not they give credit and/or make money, are generally infringing if they don’t receive permission. Fortunately, many see the gains that can be had by letting fans do their advertising for them. Unfortunately, lots of other companies (such as Mercedes, apparently) still see it, as I believe Judge Posner has said, as an opportunity to collect economic rent.
To your second point: If I understand the circumstances, the difference is that the person who clips the magazine has the legal right to do so whether or not you give permission, and whether or not he gives credit. Unlike the first person, the person who does the same thing digitally is actually making a copy, rather than using one he already purchased, and so that is generally infringing. Of course, whether you complain is up to you.
And under your third point: I assume you meant “wasn’t mortified?” I can name several composers who regretted ever having composed some of their most popular (and lucrative) pieces…
Mercedes actually thought you needed permission to link to their site? Good grief.
“If I understand the circumstances, the difference is that the person who clips the magazine has the legal right to do so whether or not you give permission, and whether or not he gives credit.”
The fact that the work was published means that the possession of the published item is ownership – whether paid for or not.
“Unlike the first person, the person who does the same thing digitally is actually making a copy, rather than using one he already purchased, and so that is generally infringing.”
By publishing to the web, one is creating a published product as an electronic file. The confusion is that some see it as ‘copying’ as in reproducing and don’t see any money transfer. The problem is that there is actually no way of knowing if a PAPER-PUBLISHED piece was ever paid for by anyone. For example, if Echo donates her art to a magazine for a featured spread (like she has done many times), then no money transferred but thousands were reproduced. Everyone in the world has access to those copies. They can take them off the press, off the truck, they can get lost, they can take them out of the garbage – and there is no way of knowing and no way of demanding that everyone who has that issue will pay Echo a cent before cutting out her art from the magazine and decorating with it. Now again, confused artists would think there was a difference – in that the ownership of a single printed edition is different than possession of a file where one could print any number off themselves – well that’s not true. First, you’ll never know how many prints are out there. Second, a scanner and a color copier are all you need to do the exact same damage. That’s a no brainer. The most important thing one has to remember is that any reproduction from a web file or a 4-color magazine/newspaper printing process is that the quality of the art will suck. If the person is a fan, they will seek out a quality signed print – even a giclee – and that will pay the artist. It might take years for them to do it – but it will happen. Everyone else will be advertising for them – and if it’s not one artist’s work, it will be another. Wanting them to pull it down is wanting them to stop promoting you AND to help promote someone else in your place. Doesn’t make sense.
The one MAJOR uniqueness are Tattoos. Tattoo artists rarely make any custom art – they are USUALLY reproducing other people, and the more obscure the art they copy the more likely they are to be mistaken as the originator of that art. You wouldn’t believe how many Vargas’, Elvgrins, Boris Vallejos, Frazettas and even Hokusais are thought of as “tattoo art” by tattoo fans because that’s the only kind of artist they can think of (not ALL tattoo fans are like that – but a lot are). Worse, is that a web image is usually good enough for a tattoo artist to use to reproduce it and while they ARE REQUIRED BY LAW to pay the originator a residual – they almost never do. The worst part of all is that tatto fans will happily pay hundreds for a tattoo but will often refuse to pay for the art itself. I’ve seen WAY TOO MANY people come to an artist’s booth and take a digital photo a piece to get the tattoo done. In some cases, the art only costs $10! (again, not ALL tattoo fans are like this – but a lot are). Those people need to be doused in gasoline and hot sauce and dragged over a 100-mile road of razor-blades and broken glass.
Why? Because those a-holes aren’t promoting the art or the artist – all they talk about is the tattoo artist who copied it.