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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

#71

Post by bfuller »

legitster wrote: post #16

I couldn't imagine getting so caught up in one piece of work. I'd like to imagine I would have just immediately turned around and told everyone I was the guy who made the cover for Aqualung and focus my energy on the next project. Also, it's very presumptive to assume I deserve a cut of your project just because it is successful. Not only do I claim my artwork had something to do with it (I doubt many people cared mu…

Aqualung was an old vinyl record my dad gave me, and I distinctly remember the cover.

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

#72

Post by jacquesm »

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…

Bad example. Zuckerberg himself was hired to code the first version of HarvardConnection.com.

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

#73

Post by sklivvz1971 »

Not surprised, the stories of artists signing for X and getting never properly compensated (either for X or X-extended-to-anything-else) are countless.

And there's little you can do, unless you can nail down the exact culprit to a specific court.

For example: Apple is selling my music, without my consent or without paying due royalties. If I go to them they say "we pay royalties to the distributor", the distributor says "we only deal with labels" and my label has gone bust. Another label now has the rights. They don't know me. They don't have a contract with me. They have a contract with a deceased label that sold them rights they never acquired. So... yeah, it's never going to be fixed.

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

#74

Post by jacquesm »

This is a case of 'contract regret'. If there was a legal case then for sure it would have been litigated and he might have won but as it is all that you could say is that it is really sorry that he got very much hung up on that one painting when instead he could have used its success to significantly raise his prices for other commissioned works with hopefully better contracts.

On another note: whoever made Jethro Tull's cover for that particular album could have felt that way because it was their music that people were buying, not the album cover.

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

#75

Post by rangibaby »

cwyers wrote: post #29

The whole article seems to vastly overstate how important the cover art was to the financial success of the album. People rarely buy t-shirts of an album cover because they really like the artwork in isolation; it's very often because it reminds them of the songs on the album.

Metal album cover or band logo t-shirts were a huge fad in Japan amongst young people, even those who didn’t like or know about the music. A metal head friend of mine said that he finally understood cultural appropriation!

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

#76

Post by rangibaby »

soperj wrote: post #23
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…

Isn't this exactly what happened with Dos & Microsoft?

I’m not going to miss a chance to suggest watching the (excellent) movie “Pirates of Silicon Valley”!

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

#77

Post by rangibaby »

backpropaganda wrote: post #31
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? 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?

Counterpoint: the Nike logo was designed by an art student for $35. Phil Knight recognized her work’s role in the success of his company and later paid her a lot of money.

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

#78

Post by bostik »

cwyers wrote: post #29

The whole article seems to vastly overstate how important the cover art was to the financial success of the album. People rarely buy t-shirts of an album cover because they really like the artwork in isolation; it's very often because it reminds them of the songs on the album.

There is a self-enforcing cycle.

A good album sells merchandise, which quite often is using imagery from the album front. T-shirts, posters, ... you name it.

Yes, the merchandise is bought as a reminder of a good experience but once it's out in the open, it becomes a form of brand advertising. Familiarity breeds interest (as well as contempt), and interest generates sales.

NB. Unrelated to the other part of your comment - I would happily buy a shirt with The Division Bell's cover even if I didn't like the album. There are limits, though. I'm NOT paying £75 for a cycling jacket with that image - such a thing was available in the V&A exhibition.

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

#79

Post by Griffinsauce »

samastur wrote: post #62
laumars wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Others have already echoed my thoughts on copyright, so I won't repeat that, but I do want to raise one other point you touched upon: > I doubt many people cared much about the album cover Back in the old days of 12 inch records, people did care about album covers. I mean yeah, the music obviously matters more but album artwork was actually pretty important as well. One of the things I feel we've lost with digital mu…

We did but at least I, personally, have never bought or not bought a record because of its cover.

You can't honestly know what subconscious effects seeing that cover had. To say it had zero effect is pretty disingenuous when you take into account what we know about human decision making and a massive global ad industry.
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