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This image is up for Auction at the Illustrators Australia 9 x 5 exhibition. Pre-bid (reserve $195) and vote in the People’s Choice award now! Auction 6pm Oct 2, 2008 @ Space 39, 39 Little Collins Street Melbourne. If you can make it I’d love to see you there.
This image may also be under threat of being deemed an Orphan work in the near future since the Orphan Works bill was hotlined last week. If you are an image maker of any kind eg:photographer/illustrator/artist/designer, etc you are doing yourself an incredible injustice by not reading up on this now. It may be happening in the US but that does not make us immune.
“Orphan Works: The Devil’s Own Day
Never Too Busy to Pass Special Interest Legislation
As lawmakers struggled Friday to clean up the mess on Wall Street, sponsors of the Orphan Works Act passed more special interest legislation. Their bill would force copyright holders to subsidize giant copyright databases run by giant internet firms.
Like the companies now needing billion dollar bailouts, these copyright registries – which would theoretically contain the entire copyright wealth of the US – would presumably be “too big to fail.” Yet it’s our wealth, not theirs, the scheme would risk.
Small business owners didn’t ask for this legislation. We don’t want it and we don’t need it. Our opposition numbers have been growing daily. So Friday, the bill’s sponsors reached for the hotline.”
Below is an explanation of the bill via the Illustrators Partnership Website :
Q What is the Orphan Works Act?
A: A proposed amendment to copyright law that would impose a radically new business model on the licensing of copyrighted work.
Q: How would it do that?
A: It would force all creators to digitize their life’s work and hand it over to privately-owned commercial databases or see it exposed to widespread infringement by anyone, for any purpose, however commercial or distasteful.
Q: How would it hurt me if I didn’t register my work?
A: The bill would let infringers rely on for-profit registries to search for your work. If your work is not in the databases, it’s a potential “orphan.”
Q: What about my unpublished work?
A: The bill would apply to any work, from professional paintings to family snapshots, home videos, etc., including published and unpublished work and any work ever placed on the internet.
Q: How would these databases work?
A: No one has yet unveiled a business plan, but we suspect they’d operate like stock houses, promoting themselves as one-stop shopping centers for licensing art. If you’ve registered your work with them, they’ll probably charge you maintenance fees and commissions for clearing your work. If you’re a publisher or art director, they’ll probably charge you search fees. If you’re an infringer, they’ll probably charge you a search fee and issue orphan certificates for any unregistered work you’d like to infringe. We assume different registries may have different terms, and any start-up terms will of course be subject to change.
Q: How will the bill affect the market for commissioned work?
A: It will be a gold mine for opportunists, favoring giant image banks over working artists. Some companies will probably sell access to orphans as royalty-free work — or they’ll harvest orphans and bundle them for sale as clip art. Other companies can harvest orphans, alter them slightly to make “derivative works” and register the derivatives as their own copyrighted product. Freelancers would then be forced to compete against their own lost art – and that of their colleagues – for the new commissions they need to make a living.
Q: But the bill’s sponsors say the bill is just a small adjustment to copyright law.
A: No, it’s actually a reversal of copyright law. It presumes that the public is entitled to use your work as a primary right and that it’s your legal obligation to make your work available.
Please go here for more info and here to do something about it.
I was immersed in one of my favourite stores in Japan ( Village Vanguard ) in one of my favourite suburbs (Shimokitazawa) some years back when I spied a shelf of strange looking half panda, half rabbit creatures with huge black-lashed doe eyes and was immediately smitten. This is how I discovered, and began my love affair with, Nagi Noda’s work.
I scoured the internet for her and found out how incredibly ingenious and prolific she had been and over the next couple of years saw her collaborate with another fav of mine, Mark Ryden, it seemed that everytime I saw an awesome product or film clip it had been designed, or inspired, by her work.
SADly, earlier this month Nagi Noda passed away. Noda had experienced ongoing complications related to a bad car accident last year that resulted in chronic pain. The exact cause of death was not specified. She was 35.
“Beyond being a brilliant artist and wonderful talent, Nagi was one of the most incredibly unique spirits that I have known,” says Sheila Stepanek, CEO/EP Partizan US, which represented Noda. “Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends.” Stepanek says that Noda passed “in her Mark Ryden dress, Chanel boots, perfect make-up with Viktor & Rolf lace black eye lashes.” Quote taken from Creativity Online.
Nagi was blessed with a highly unique vision of the world, her work was not flashy, nor too complex, instead it focused on taking the viewer to another dimension where emotion and states of being are expressed in dream-like scenarios. It reminded me of my childhood in it’s technique and thought process and also in it’s hand made feel, you know those rainy days when you were young and you decided to make a fort out of the loungeroom furniture and you believe it truly is one… or was that just me? Anyway, her passing has SADdened me deeply, knowing just how much more she could have created. It is the same feeling I had when Jim Henson passed away, and I am HAPPY to say I openly cried about it, along with my Art teacher, much to the confusion of my classmates who were too busy scratching their latest boyfriends names into their pencil cases to really even notice. Nagi’s work will remain for me a constant inspiration.
You will find a selection of videos and images below of her work along with photos of my own little ‘Hanpanda’ photographed reading the recent issue of Australian Creative, and the Weekend Australian Magazine, both of which, I am HAPPY to say, feature my work.
Arigatou Nagi Noda,
much love your fan, Andrea
Original image mixed by DesignTaxi
The article I wrote on my ICON 5 experience is live and on the DesignTaxi site now check out part one and part two.…. yes in two parts, being succinct is not one of my strong points.
That said, this is where this post ends!
…oh, actually I just want to thank DesignTaxi for the opportunity to publish my thoughts on the conference and share them with so many others;-) Enjoy!
After watching this video I realized that the last couple of weeks I have actually been ‘procrastinating’…. thinly disguised as organizing my studio, sorting my finances and buying furniture, all so that I can work more efficiently. Hmm, maybe its time to do some actual real work instead… now where is that mechanical pencil I just can’t draw anything of value without?
Every time I go to post I forget what I wanted to say, I just sit there staring at the screen, hands poised to attack the keys. It’s like when you go to get a DVD and stand around for like 30 mins even though you probably have a list of movies you’ve wanted to watch for the longest time!
Anyhow there is someone I have been wanting to blog about for the longest time. Her name is Mel Stringer and she is one of the most talented and exquisitely insightful artists I know …. but unfortunately have not met yet! We have spoken on the phone and sent each other some really long emails detailing our love for each others work (truly a hilarious read) and we have even been to the same exhibition openings but seem to have missed each other by only minutes! Me: “Is Mel here?” Random dude: “Oh, yeah she was here just a minute ago”. Anyway I am sure I will meet her someday, until then it only adds to the romance, mystery and intrique that is Mel Stringer. She also has an equally talented boyfriend who produces some inky, surreal and sublime comics.. see Ben’s work here.
The photos here are of some of here awesome goodies over at her Etsy shop and of her works in a recent show at 696 Gallery on Sydney Rd, Melbourne.
BTW they are wanting to move to Melbourne (again… long story) if anyone can help them with jobs and accommodation please email me and I’ll send them your recommendations, if you can’t do that then go ahead and purchase some goodies as that will at least fund their move;-)
Also BTW I will be in a group exhibition with Mel opening here in Melbourne in October… but more about that later;-)
I have completed my article on ICON 5 for Design Taxi and have been told it will be up some time next week, I’ll let you know.
In the mean time if you have some spare cash burning a hole in your pocket and want to bid on some seriously awesome artwork for a great cause I suggest you check out the “Totoro Forest Project” you have until 12pm tonight to bid. Check out the blog for the artists work here. Proceeds go to preserving the forest that inspired Hayao Miyazaki’s ‘My Neighbour Totoro’.
