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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

#91

Post by KozmoNau7 »

laumars wrote: post #48
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…

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…

It's an absolutely fantastic cover for a fantastic album. To me, it does play a significant role, it gives you an image of the wheezing sad existence of Aqualung, and the raw style of the painting adds significantly to the impression it makes.

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

#92

Post by toyg »

talltimtom wrote: post #89
mrleinad wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point: Artists at that time weren't protected enough to retain copyright over their work. They are now. It's not whether "you actually have money now", it's that "you're making money with something I created and I deserve a piece of that too"

So If you make a lot of money On Uber with your Tesla, they “deserve” a piece of that too? A deal is a deal, he sold the art up front without any royalty, that is in him and he was in no way cheated, had he done the same deal with 20 other covers of bands that disn’t make it big he would not be complaining.

The difference is that you cannot sell litographical copies of a Tesla with your autograph, as Ian Anderson is doing with that image now. The "copy" part of copyright exists precisely because these works are not simple manufactured goods, they can be easily copied.

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

#93

Post by thaumasiotes »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #59

This happened to an ex of mine. While we were together she was asked to do the album artwork for a top international-name stadium-filling band. I persuaded her to charge £10k, which was around what she earned a year. She was going to charge much less. Neither of us considered future revenue from licensing or merchandise, so it was signed as a one-off work-for-hire deal. The manager still grumbled about how pushy she…

> The imagery has appeared on countless merch items since. It’s hard to estimate the economic value, but it was surely a lot more than £10k.

You get paid based on the cost of replacing your work with someone else's work, not on the value of your work product.

But even if you want to argue for paying people based on value produced, your ex didn't produce that value. It came from the band. People buy band merch because they like the band, not because they like the art.

The aqualung cover image would be basically worthless right now if the artist had kept it while some other image went on the cover of aqualung.

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

#94

Post by toyg »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #73

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 s…

> They have a contract with a deceased label that sold them rights they never acquired

Surely, if that can somehow be proven in court, those rights would become void and you should get your music back. I know this might not be practical (the court system is not cheap, in most countries), but it's not a principle set in stone that "people get screwed".

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

#95

Post by ada1981 »

This is such an odd story.

The guy sold a painting knowing it was going to be used by a rock band for an album and took a one time payment.

Then he spends the next several decades complaining about it, so much so that his son tries to extract some sort of narrative about the whole process to support his fathers position.

In some ways I can actually relate, so perhaps I’m projecting my own hurt from lack of Justice... but in this case the guy was paid and it was only after it was successful did he start wishing he got more money.

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

#96

Post by bloak »

jancsika wrote: post #18
donatj wrote: post #2

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

This artist created something that got widely recognized, and the genesis of it (he alleges) was widely misrepresented by both Ellis and Anderson. Also, he got paid squat compared to what the album generated in sales. Unless you are Spock from Star Trek, you are going to have some feelings of frustration, indignation, and envy from that experience.

You're right about people being irrational.

If you're worried about someone else getting rich from your work, while you get nothing, but it's impracticable to get royalties because the work will be used to create various derived works in various unforseeable ways, then perhaps the thing to do is offer them, in return for an immediate cash payment, non-exclusive rights for ever, but exclusive rights only for the first five years. You'd probably have to put something in about the purchaser licensing back to you any other necessary rights (e.g. trademarks) to make this work, but it might then mean you'd get a second chance at negotiating five years later. In the case of the cover of a successful record, either they come back to you five years later with more cash, or else you sell your remaining rights to someone else who wants to make T-shirts or whatever. Or you donate the image to the public domain if that's what you prefer. I'm suggesting this approach not so much as a business plan but as a way of avoiding irrational feelings of frustration or indignation, but it might also be a good business plan in some cases.

Personally I like non-exclusive rights. It helps avoid orphaning of works and ridiculous situations in which it's impossible to republish a book unless you can get 19 people to all agree and give permission because that's how many people might have inherited a share in some required exclusive right.

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

#97

Post by rocannon »

> In 1971, Terry Ellis, the co-founder of Chrysalis Records, paid him a flat $1,500 fee for the three paintings which would comprise the album’s artwork

It is too bad he didn't negotiate a royalty agreement, but then they might not have given him the work, either.

FWIW if he had invested $1000 in the S&P 500 on January 1 of 1972, that investment would be worth about $100K today, according to some online calculators that I tried.

Granted, investing is a lot easier, now that online brokerages exist. It was probably not something that many artists did back in the '70s.

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

#98

Post by coldtea »

>But dad’s earnings had a hard cap. In 1971, Terry Ellis, the co-founder of Chrysalis Records, paid him a flat $1,500 fee for the three paintings which would comprise the album’s artwork, consummating the deal with nothing more than a handshake. No written contractual agreement was drawn up, and, much to his eventual dismay, nor was any determination made about future use.

Well, if he got his $1500 he shook hands on (and which seem a good amount for the time, heck even today an artist can be paid less for an album cover), then he doesn't exactly has any legs to stand on.

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

#100

Post by jimmydddd »

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2018/05/on-behalf-of...

"Is it ever okay to sell the rights to your work?

Milton Glaser was paid about $2,000 in expenses to create the I Love NY logo, one of the iconic marketing images of its decade. He later said, "I was very happy to do it. I was very happy about the consequences.”

Carolyn Davidson originally made $35 for designing the swoosh that Nike made famous."

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