About Us
Who We Follow on Twitter, and Why
Who We Follow on Twitter, and Why
Our campaign is focussed on copyright issues as they affect artists. This remit can cover anything from proposed new copyright legislation, the conflict between 'Big Tech' and copyright enforcement, copyright abuses by organisations, abuses such as rights grabbing, copyright infringements, piracy, the deletion of copyright information by many organisations' websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, and so on.
Apart from our own investigations, and the notices we recieve from artists about copyright abuse, we use Twitter to seek out issues that should be brought to artists' attention. How do we choose who to follow? This has evolved since @ArtistRights was launched on Twitter in April 2011, then one of our policies was to simply to follow every artist who followed us. We have had to review our policies since then and now plan only to follow organisations or people who regularly post news about copyright issues as they affect artists.
Tweetdeck
We use Tweetdeck to manage those we follow, to categorise them into lists, and we also use Tweetdeck's filtering mechanisms. So for example we have an 'Artists' list, a 'Legal' list (for lawyers), a 'Copyright' list for non legal commentators, a 'Goverment' list for those departments/politicians involved with copyright, and so on. We also use Tweetdeck filters, they are useful but are a bit hit and miss at finding relevant and topical commentary on the issues we address in our campaign
Our resources are not unlimited and much of our resource is dedicated to engaging with organisations seeking to persuade them of the benefits of supporting the principles set out in the Artists' Bill of Rights. This effort is unreported and unsung, our correspondence with them remains confidential. We also have to prepare reports for our website so monitoring Twitter (& Facebook) is just one of many activities the campaign is involved in.
Our Follow Guidelines
To make most effective use of the campaign's resources and to use Twitter to focus as closely as it can on the relevant issues we simply cannot follow everyone who follows us. So here are the guidelines about who we follow;
Organisations & businesses who have committed to supporting and adopting the principles set out in the Artists' Bill of Rights are always followed.
For all other organisations and individuals we will follow them if they regularly tweet about the issues our campaign is focussed on, copyright issues concerning artists, copyright abuses such as rights grabbing, copyright infringements and deletion of metadata, copyright legislation as it currently applies to artists, proposed changes to copyright legislation, and links to helpful guidance for artists concerning copyright.
Each person or organisation we follow is added to one of our lists, details of which can be seen on our Twitter lists page. That page will be updated with some commentary in the next few days.
We are currently reviewing all the organisations and individuals we follow in the light of the above and this will mean we will of necessity do some 'unfollows'. We do hope this will not be taken as a slight. If you are an artist and mostly, for example, talk about the techniques of your art, rarely, if ever talking about copyright issues, much as we wish we had the time to do so we will not follow you. However, we do value your support in following us, and we hope information and news that we impart is of relevance to you. We are trying to provide a service, imparting relevant news to professional artists, and educational material to the public, we hope our followers will understand what we are doing and why.
What can you do
Contributors - Wanted!
We, the Artists' Bill of Rights (ABoR) contributors, are always on the lookout for people who support the aims of the campaign and would like to use their skills to help further them.
The aims of the campaign are -
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To provide a means whereby all artists' associations can unite around a common set of standards for preservation of their rights.
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To promote the Artists' Bill of Rights' standards for the preservation of artists' rights in competitions and appeals seeking creative works. (Consideration may be given to widening that remit in future, e.g. to contracts.)
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To promote organisations who support the Artists’ Bill of Rights and to promote their competitions and appeals.
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To educate the public about the purpose and value of their intellectual property rights and to enable them to recognise when they are being exploited.
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To publish reports about the extent of rights grabbing and other copyright abuses and to analyse and quantify the rights grabbed by the private, public, charitable, and non-profit sectors.
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To press for legislative changes that would protect the public from unfair and unethical terms and conditions that seek to exploit their intellectual property rights.
Having more contributors will not just bring additional resources to carry out the campaign work. We hope it will bring fresh ideas, innovative thinking, a wider range of skills, to build to a worldwide international community empowered by being united in a common cause.
Such a worldwide collaboration will demonstrate clearly to businesses, the public sector and charities, that there is an international ethical standard setting out limits on the use of the public's intellectual property rights without payment.
Contributors - how you can help
Contributors can help the campaign's aims in several ways, click on any of the titles below to find out more.
Use the Artists' Bill of Rights Logo to promote the campaign
You can add the logo to your website or anywhere else where you have permission to display it and link it ti http://artists-bill-of-rights.org
You could also add the logo to your email signature again linking it to the URL given above. Doing that with every email you send is a easy way to bring the campaign to your friends and collegaues attention.
This is the logo to use-
What to do?
We are sorry, this is unpaid work, as campaigns led by passion often are. We hope you feel that achieving the aims of the campaign will be recompense for contributing your skills, time and effort.
If you are interested in contributing to the campaign please contact us and tell us about your background, how you like to help, and of course your contact details so we can get back to you.
What Others Say
What Others Say About Us
We with to thank all who have published anything about the Bill of Rights for Artists campaign. Listed below are links to the authors and publishers of articles and blogs mentioning our campaign of respect for artists rights. We thank each of you and welcome all ideas to improve our campaign.
Please tell us what you've published regarding our campaign. We'll credit and link to your article.
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ACMP, Australia; Artists' Bill of Rights press release 11 Apr 2011
Advertising & Illustrative Photographers Association; Facebook promotion of Artists Bill of Rights launch.
Angelo Stavrow Photography; news item about the endorsement of the the Bill of Rights by the National Press Photograhers Association in the USA.
APhotoEditor; The Biggest Scam in Photography; comments following the article refer to how the Bill of Rights campaign brought to a halt Microsoft's Iconic Britain copyright infringing competition and resulted in Nikon withdrawing from the competition.
APhotoEditor; My Guide to Photography Contests
Creatives at Work; Article by Eileen Fritsch entitled "Campaign Promotes Bill of Rights for Creators" giving good advice to potential entrants, we thank Eileen for referring to our articles about the fine print of photo contests.
British Institute of Professional Photographers (BIPP); Artists Bill of Rights article
Bill of Rights Logo
The Bill of Rights for Artists Logo
The Bill of Rights for Artists' logo design is shown below:
Usage of the Bill of Rights Logo
The logo can only be used by organisations that have agreed to be supporters of the Artists' Bill of Rights, that is they will neither organise nor sponsor contests that do not comply with the standards set out in the Bill of Rights. If you find an organisation using the logo to promote themselves and their contest and they are not on the Bill of Rights Supporters List please contact us to tell us about this.
Logo for Individual Supporters
Many people, working professionals, amateurs and members of the public support the aims of the Artists' Bill of Rights . To enable them to declare their support we have created an Artists' Bill of Rights Logo for individuals to freely use on their own website.
Feel free to use this logo on your website and we would be grateful if you would link it to the Artists' Bill of Rights home page at https://artists-bill-of-rights.org
Logos in Other Languages
We are grateful to Bojan Rantaša of VeloFest who kindly supplied the translation to enable a Macedonian version of the logo to be made.
You can see it below and we hope to add versions of the logo in other languages. Perhaps you, the reader, might like to offer the appropriate text in your language for the Bill of Rights Logo.
Macedonia
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Bill of Rights Poem
The Bill of Rights Poem
The Bill of Rights Poem
We commissioned a poet, Bryan Islip, to compose a poem for us that expresses in a way that only poets can, our contempt for right grabbing terms and conditions that seek creative works such as photographs, stories, poetry, music, videos, designs, etc from the public. We are delighted with this very expressive work and wish to thank Bryan Islip publicly, who as a creator himself has the greatest sympathy with our cause.
'If You Can Keep'
A poem by Bryan Islip
If you can keep your heart when all about you
Have lost their titles to some small print t's and c's,
If you can trust the law when lawyers doubt you,
But make allowance for their fat cat pleas;
If you submit and not be beat, submitting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being used but don't give way to users
Nor argue much, nor talk too wise:
If you submit your work and lose its virtue,
But always try to show the honest touch,
If those big businessmen can't hurt you,
Though all men count with you, and truth as such;
If you can let them take your stuff and own it
Throughout the universe and just for fun
You lose the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a fool, my son!
The Background to the Poem
Background
The poem was originally written as a response to the 'I Am Buried' competition launched by Corbis in August 2007. Entrants were to submit their works to the competition the rules of which claimed all rights to them, forever, and throughout the universe.
A photographers' organisation, Pro-Imaging, was so concerned at the greed embedded in the terms and conditions of this competition that they decided there and then to build a campaign for artists' rights. The campaign would list those who sponsor rights grabbing competitions and promote organisations who don't.
Listed below is an extract from the Corbis terms and conditions, these are the terms and conditions that acted as the catalyst for the Bill of Rights for Artists' campaign.
"I Am Buried" by Corbis; Terms & Conditions
(By submitting you agree to)...exclusively and irrevocably assign, convey and transfer to Sponsor any and all right, title and interest in the Submission, including the copyright, right of publicity, moral rights and any ideas included in the Submission...this assignment shall give Sponsor sole ownership over your Submission and ... shall have the right to transfer or assign any part or all of the Submission, without limitation....have the right to edit, adapt and publish any or all of the Submission, and may use it in any media including, without limitation any new technologies that are yet to be developed, without attribution or compensation to the entrant, his/her successors or assigns, or any other entity. Further, this assignment shall give Sponsor the right to use the Submission in perpetuity and throughout the universe without further consideration. If you do not want to assign such rights to Sponsor, you should not participate in this Contest".
The Corbis Defence
Following a vast number of complaints from people about the above terms and conditions Corbis unleashed a spokesman to put out the fire. This is what the Corbis spokesman said;
"The rules of the Corbis "I am Buried" promotion are standard and consistent with other online contests. As a company representing intellectual property, we work to carefully respect images, video, essays, ideas and other intellectual property.
The content submitted as part of "I am Buried" will be used only for the purposes of judging and supporting marketing to promote the contest, and for no other purpose.
Participants do not have to submit their own images; they can select representative examples from the Corbis site.
Corbis requires the representations and warranties to make sure that the content that is submitted is original, and not taken from another company or artist."
So now we know, the Corbis rules are standard and consistent with other online contests, and so the Corbis spokesman has just confirmed what the problem is, that rights grabbing terms and conditions are endemic.
Next, the Corbis spokesperson goes on to say that they require "the representations and warranties to make sure that the content that is submitted is original". This is a nonsense statement. It is not necessary to demand that entrants "transfer all right, title and interest in the submission" to ensure originality and that they are not infringing others work.
All that was needed was a statement in the terms and conditions something like this "You agree that the work you submit is your own original work" which all entrants are required to accept. It is bizarre to say the least that an organisation such as Corbis, with access to its own considerable in-house legal expertise, could have drafted such all encompassing terms and conditions simply to ensure entrants submitted their own work and not somebody else's. It suggests the legal people who drafted these terms and conditions should take a refresher course in intellectual property law, and common sense!
In a conversation about this contest with the Corbis Director of Communications he happened to say "You know what it's like when you get a bunch of lawyers in a room". If we didn't before, we certainly do now!
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