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My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

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Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#31

Post by backpropaganda »

wpietri wrote: post #21
donatj wrote: post #2

I have trouble feeling bad for the guy. He was paid what he had agreed to.

Easy thing to say. But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America? We here in SV have evolved a culture and a set of business practices that do a much better job of compensating us fairly. We make good cash money, and we tend to get a share of the success when things get big. It's not like we as ind…

> But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America?

So? I agreed to be paid a few thousand bucks for a few hours of work. Why does he owe me anything other than what we agreed on?

Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#32

Post by kbenson »

wpietri wrote: post #21
donatj wrote: post #2

I have trouble feeling bad for the guy. He was paid what he had agreed to.

Easy thing to say. But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America? We here in SV have evolved a culture and a set of business practices that do a much better job of compensating us fairly. We make good cash money, and we tend to get a share of the success when things get big. It's not like we as ind…

> But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America?

Would you be willing to give the lion's share of the money you were paid to code it back if the site flopped?

> We here in SV have evolved a culture and a set of business practices that do a much better job of compensating us fairly.

It'ss not culture, it's market economics.

> But we're very lucky in that people with our talents and skills are still much rarer than business types would like.

Exactly. The rarity is key here.

> There's no reason this guy shouldn't get as fair a shake as we do.

He did. Plenty of programmers do work for hire and contract work, and aren't paid in partial ownership.

If I'm a farmer, and I hire someone to work in my field, do they deserve a share of my crop just because they worked it? Does the amount I paid them, if what was agreed upon, change their rights of ownership beyond the up-front agreed upon terms?

I don't see this being any different just because it's an artistic work. There may be a disagreement on what was actually sold, the image and all future uses of it or the singular representation that was handed over, but I hardly see that as worthy of some greater discussion of work, it's worth, and how people are compensated. There are worthy discussions to be had over that, and how we deal with it as a society, but a contract dispute in a case because nobody bothered to even create a contract, such as this, seems a poor start to me.

Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#33

Post by busterarm »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #22
paulsutter wrote: post #6

He should have leveraged the success of the album to get high paid work. Jim Carrey was offered $350K for Dumb and Dumber, which he turned down (he wanted $400K). Then when Ace Ventura became a surprise hit, the offer for Dumb and Dumber was raised to $7,000,000, which he took. He made only $350K for Ace Ventura, but that opened the door to a bigger payday. Based on the success of Dumb and Dumber, he was the first ac…

They live in an UWS brownstone. Can't have had too much of a struggle through life.

At 89.

If you remember what Manhattan was like 25-50 years ago, you wouldn't be saying that.

In the 80s you could buy brownstones for $20k.

Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#34

Post by shub »

crystaln wrote: post #15
bmpafa wrote: post #5

key part: "[A lawyer specializing in this sort of law] explained that when dad and Chrysalis came to a handshake agreement, as long as the paintings were originally considered “works made for hire,” the copyright for the paintings always belonged to Chrysalis, thanks to the 1909 Copyright Act. Copyright laws were amended in 1978, making it more difficult for commissioned works to qualify as “works made for hire,” esp…

And after that the copyright transfer was inserted into contracts.

Not necessarily. At least for writing gigs my wife has done, often they involve assigning all rights but not ownership to the client. This is spelled out in the contract, I imagine to avoid controversy over whether there was "work for hire" or not. On the other hand, every dev job I've taken has had me sign a thing saying that the work I do is work for hire and the employer owns the copyright. Seems fair, they're giving me a paycheck after all.

Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#35

Post by Dylan16807 »

kbenson wrote: post #32
wpietri wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy thing to say. But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America? We here in SV have evolved a culture and a set of business practices that do a much better job of compensating us fairly. We make good cash money, and we tend to get a share of the success when things get big. It's not like we as ind…

> But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America? Would you be willing to give the lion's share of the money you were paid to code it back if the site flopped? > We here in SV have evolved a culture and a set of business practices that do a much better job of compensating us fairly. It'ss not cultur…

>> But imagine Zuckerberg had hired you to code the first version of his site, paid you a few thousand bucks, and then he went on to be one of the richest men in America?

> Would you be willing to give the lion's share of the money you were paid to code it back if the site flopped?

That's why you'd only get a little bit of the money, rather than half. But it still makes a lot more sense than 0%

> If I'm a farmer, and I hire someone to work in my field, do they deserve a share of my crop just because they worked it? Does the amount I paid them, if what was agreed upon, change their rights of ownership beyond the up-front agreed upon terms?

If each unit of crop takes one hour of labor, and you sell it for $2000, you're a terrible person if you still pay minimum wage.

Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#36

Post by ygra »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #27
djsumdog wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you sell a man or women a piece of artwork, yes they can put it up in their home and people can see it. If people take photos in front of it, well the photo is of the people and the art could be fair use context. If they take that piece of art and copy it and put it on a book cover .. now that's not right. I've never actually bought art at an art fair, but I was with a friend who bought a ballet drawing once. I do…

> If you sell a man or women a piece of artwork, yes they can put it up in their home and people can see it. > If they take that piece of art and copy it and put it on a book cover .. now that's not right. ...where exactly do you think book covers come from? > If I sell you a piece of art, you don't get the copyright for that art. If you sell me art that I'm going to use for a book cover, I will in fact get the copyr…

Isn't copyright non-transferrable? You'd get certain usage rights, but copyright will always remain with the original artist.

Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#38

Post by gkanai »

busterarm wrote: post #33
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They live in an UWS brownstone. Can't have had too much of a struggle through life.

At 89. If you remember what Manhattan was like 25-50 years ago, you wouldn't be saying that. In the 80s you could buy brownstones for $20k.

Not the 80s. The 70s. You could not buy a UWS brownstone in the 80s for $20k.

Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#39

Post by toast0 »

bshepard wrote: post #8
paulsutter wrote: post #6

He should have leveraged the success of the album to get high paid work. Jim Carrey was offered $350K for Dumb and Dumber, which he turned down (he wanted $400K). Then when Ace Ventura became a surprise hit, the offer for Dumb and Dumber was raised to $7,000,000, which he took. He made only $350K for Ace Ventura, but that opened the door to a bigger payday. Based on the success of Dumb and Dumber, he was the first ac…

Do markets for art work in the same way as markets for talent in film? To what extent does success in mass media illustration correspond to success in selling singular art objects?

It doesn't need to, if success in mass media illustration leads to success in attaining mass media illustration contracts.

I recall hearing that such and such cover was done by the same person who did some other cover.

Re: My Dad Painted Jethro Tull’s ‘Aqualung’ Cover and It’s Haunted Him

#40

Post by thaumasiotes »

ygra wrote: post #36
thaumasiotes wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you sell a man or women a piece of artwork, yes they can put it up in their home and people can see it. > If they take that piece of art and copy it and put it on a book cover .. now that's not right. ...where exactly do you think book covers come from? > If I sell you a piece of art, you don't get the copyright for that art. If you sell me art that I'm going to use for a book cover, I will in fact get the copyr…

Isn't copyright non-transferrable? You'd get certain usage rights, but copyright will always remain with the original artist.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Obviously, the historical facts are that copyright was transferable at the time. It's certainly transferable right now. Why is your sentence set in the past tense, and what are you thinking of?
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