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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

#41

Post by pasquinelli »

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…

yeah, selling a painting is different from granting a copyright for a painting. that's the point.

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

#42

Post by lopmotr »

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.

If that frustrates you, then all of life is going to be endless pain. Why didn't you buy shares on company X (Twitter, Facebook, whatever) back when it was cheap? Why didn't you make every decision in your life the lucky way by correctly guessing the future? It's impossible not to constantly miss opportunities that involve guessing the future. If he had negotiated for a royalty, they might have refused. Perhaps he regrets not trying to negotiate. If he had tried and still got the same deal, I can't imagine any way he could regret it.

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

#43

Post by zwischenzug »

bencollier49 wrote: post #37

What a strange article. He was paid a flat fee for some work and appears to have got greedy and bitter when the album was successful.

Yeah, I don't get it:

   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.
It's not even in dispute. There was a contract, so what if it was not written down? Give me $1500 and you can do whatever you want with my three paintings. Handshake. Does the typesetter deserve royalties too?

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

#44

Post by yoaviram »

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.

You're confusing copyright with moral rights[1], although even moral rights are transferable.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights

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

#45

Post by heretoo »

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 think that is how it is in Switzerland. The "Urheber" is the person with the original copyright, but can hand over the usage rights to someone else, in turn losing them.

[update: copyright in German might be like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Germany]

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

#46

Post by thaumasiotes »

pasquinelli wrote: post #41
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…

yeah, selling a painting is different from granting a copyright for a painting. that's the point.

This was commissioned work. It was commissioned under existing legal standards specifying that the copyright went to the person buying the work. Had it been commissioned under legal standards specifying that in the absence of a written contract, copyright stayed with the artist, there would have been a written contract assigning copyright to Chrysalis Records. It's not like Terry Ellis found an existing painting and bought it.

Nobody got ripped off here, and everyone got exactly what they should have expected to get.

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

#47

Post by heretoo »

yoaviram wrote: post #44
ygra wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You're confusing copyright with moral rights[1], although even moral rights are transferable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights

Depends on which country you are in:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Germany

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

#48

Post by laumars »

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 music is the entire presentation of a record. That's not to say things are worse now because we've gained stuff in return (eg music has never been so widely available as it is now). But album artwork (not just the front covers) did actually matter to a great many people.

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

#49

Post by Dylan16807 »

lopmotr wrote: post #42
jancsika wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If that frustrates you, then all of life is going to be endless pain. Why didn't you buy shares on company X (Twitter, Facebook, whatever) back when it was cheap? Why didn't you make every decision in your life the lucky way by correctly guessing the future? It's impossible not to constantly miss opportunities that involve guessing the future. If he had negotiated for a royalty, they might have refused. Perhaps he re…

Life doesn't become 'endless pain' just because you think that some amount of royalties should be the default.

Imagine if it was just there, without being negotiated. Not a large enough amount to meaningfully affect the budget, just enough for huge successes to give a payout.

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

#50

Post by pasquinelli »

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.

unless it can be inserted into a handshake agreement, that's not really relevant to this case.
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