amanda palmer's open poem to jonathan chait (and other crimes)

pat pope should have said "yes, but you have to photoshop shirley out of the pic"

just three rockin' dads in black, that's all you get for free

I've seen a lot of garbage photo books in my day, what's the point of one more?

Amanda Palmer will be "opening" for "Morrissey" on his "tour"

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/6523980/morrissey-us-tour-2015-dates-blondie-amanda-palmer

well, as long as they aren't coming anywhere near maryland, i guess.

Brio2 is otm. It's unprofessional and uncouth. Take it to The People's Court or something. There are appropriate avenues in which to settle disputes.

well the issue is that pro photographers ownership and rights to their own work is routinely tested by people with tons of money who have no interest in paying them. imagine you were about to release a major label mix of live covers and dropped an artist who recorded one of those songs with a form letter that says "hey no pay but THE EXPOSURE and if you don't want to do it, no biggie; we'll take somebody else", I could understand taking umbrage

Just looks like one date on the Moz tour

apparently garbage had already used one of the photographer's pics in their liner notes without permission, i can see getting justifiably shirty about this new "art of asking" feint.

Seems like the label should be handling that tho. Getting permissions and licenses is a responsibility of production side of the things the artists and musicians should be focusing on the music.

they are now an independent band on their own label, according to the response letter.

Writing an open letter almost automatically makes you an asshole if it's someone you could just write privately. I mean - fair enough if you want to write Henry Kissinger an open letter or something but you're on shaky ground writing an open letter to a washed-up 90's band.

― Brio2, Friday, April 3, 2015 7:37 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't chat nonsense, calling out patterns of labour and copyright exploitation in an industry riven with them is very necessary to do as publicly as possible

and it's that exact kind of tut-tutting that enables it bc it makes people think twice about being seen to complain in public

Yeah in the long run my sympathy is with the photog on the issue, esp considering garbage has already used the open letter format to tell kanye west he's a butt. But when his response to theirs is IM NOT HOSTILE it sounds like both need to just step back

Yeah you guys are right.

Moral of the story is if you're going to ask people to give you stuff for free claiming poverty you should probably not have your manager do the asking

So was he really paid in 1995 for the shoot? Because if so then I'm back on Garbage's side. Unless they didn't give him credit I don't see why he could keep being paid for the same photo.

it has nothing to do w being paid at the time. when a photog sells their work it's a licensing situation where the purchaser gets to use the pictures for a certain price w certain terms (unless it's work for hire, which one should avoid unless the dump truck is full of money). it;s fair to say that even if he was paid in 95 those terms have expired and should be renegotiated. ppls thoughts on the letter aside, the content is 100% valid in this day and age and garbage is full of shit wrt begging.

I have to have variations on this conversation w people wanting my pictures weekly.

Do you use contracts or releases for your shoots? Because if he had something down in writing this all could have been avoided.

a) yes

"Because if he had something down in writing this all could have been avoided."

avoid what though?

it could all be avoided if garbage had money to pay their contributors?

pope pat XXIV

He was already paid in 1995, right?

Why didn't he decline to have his photo used when he heard they weren't paying him again?

he did tho?

i don't understand

We regret that you interpreted our request so negatively. HAVING ALREADY paid you in 1995 for the entire shoot from which these images were selected, we really didn’t expect such a hostile reception to our enquiry. We adore the photographs you took of us at such a special time in our career but it was never our intent to use the aforementioned images without your express permission.

from wikipedia
The exclusive right of photographers to copy and use their products is protected by copyright. Countless industries purchase photographs for use in publications and on products. The photographs seen on magazine covers, in television advertising, on greeting cards or calendars, on websites, or on products and packages, have generally been purchased for this use, either directly from the photographer or through an agency that represents the photographer. A photographer uses a contract to sell the "license" or use of his or her photograph with exact controls regarding how often the photograph will be used, in what territory it will be used (for example U.S. or U.K. or other), and exactly for which products. This is usually referred to as usage fee and is used to distinguish from production fees (payment for the actual creation of a photograph or photographs). An additional contract and royalty would apply for each additional use of the photograph.

so like, if a company licenses your song, and then wants to do it again for a different product, "WE ALREADY PAID YOU" ignores the issue

paid for the shoot and paid for usage are two separate things

throw in that the dude was already sore about their old label re-using a shot for a best-of without paying

also can we note that one of the three guys who allegedly can't afford to pay a photo royalty for a book of him, shirley, and The Other Two is Butch Vig

i mean maybe he's albini about this shit, but i'm guessing he's very familiar with the concept of royalties, and a fan of them

BV probably told shirley to do whatever the fuck she wants and just tell him what day to show up

He probably also realizes the importance of getting things in writing. Did the photographer have them sign a contract for these? Garbage being one of the biggest bands in the world in 1995, I would hope so.

i don't understand what your line of questioning has to do with the facts of the sutuation

Contracts typically hold a lot of weight in legal matters.

adam, garbage management wouldn't have contacted him if there wasn't a contract

i wonder how he'd react if billy corgan's management was like "hey billy wants to put an outtake you produced on a little collection of songs for his bestest of fans, would it be cool if he didn't pay you your royalty, he runs his own label now"

how butch, i mean

how butch, i mean

in case anyone else is confused.

1. professional photographers own their work, license it, and get a royalty

2. garbage management asked this guy to waive his royalty for their fun little book of memories as the band is now working at a smaller scale

3. having already been burnt by their label re-using a pic (and yes, he could have sued, but hopefully it's not hard to realize the career and financial cons of that) and knowing garbage has made public pronouncements about how artists should conduct themselves, the photog noted that he too is an artist and that he should be allotted the same respect they'd want

4. garbage was like "damn man we just asked for a favor geez we do pals favors all the time, thought you were a pal"

5. dude responds "YOU COULD HAVE ASKED ME YOURSELF"

6. the internet has a think

and even if you find this all a bit gauche and piddly (can't imagine his photo would cost much more than meal), the only reason to be on team garbage here is if you too are so through the looking glass that you don't know the difference between doing something and having your "team" do it, or if you're secretly one of those guys in the band not named shirley or butch

No im just saying from a purely legal standpoint, it sounds like he fucked up point 1. We are assuming management contacted him because they had a contract between him and them. If he was due royalties from a legally binding contract then you would assume they would offer him that rather than just credit. If the contract did not stipulate long term licensing then why should they be compelled to offer royalties?

There is a difference between having your royalty waved and not be entitled to it in the first place. It sounds as if they looked at his contract, realized they did not legally owe him money, and contacted him based on that reading of it. Maybe you are right and they read the contract and decided to try and get him to wave his right to license the work. But that would be legally fishy and seriously undermine any potential court case that resulted.

The only way to truly know would be to look at the contract.

"We are assuming management contacted him because they had a contract between him and them. "

I think you're the only one assuming this. they contacted him bc they wanted the picture

DC already laid it out

And they just remembered his name for 20 years.

https://images.google.com/

It's true there may not have been a set rate, but clearly the band at least needed permission. I highly doubt he "fucked up" to the point where they could release a book of his photos whenever they wanted and simply asked for permission out of respect.

If anyone other than the photographer would own his professional pics of garbage from the 90s, it would be the label.

adam, fotogs don't need a contract in order to retain ownership of their rights to the photos they take.

Or whoever published them. So yeah there's probably not a set contract with garbage sorry if I implied that. But there's still no reason to talk about this in "purely legal" terms cuz he didn't accuse them of a crime, just being shitty-to-unethical.