I am baffled, perplexed, yea and verily, utterly flummoxed when I hear of poor, starving artists going up against big bad corporations and nefarious industry individuals, and these poor creators are utterly unable to afford legal advice or representation, when I REPEATEDLY RECOMMEND THE VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS to them AS IF I AM CHANTING A FREAKING MANTRA!!!

THE VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS, an organization whose name should be seared into your brain by now, takes cases pro bono or based on need as indicated by your income.

If you come to me for advice, and I direct you to the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS, and you do not do as I have recommended, and then you complain you can’t get a lawyer…well, Darwinism is at work. I have recommended THE VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS to a number of creators over the years, and they represented me when I was a young and poor artist, and they also recommended adequate legal counsel elsewhere at very reasonable prices. I have NEVER known them NOT to represent a creator to the satisfaction of all involved WHEN THERE WAS A LEGITIMATE CASE.

In fact, I just paid my extremely expensive art and entertainment attorney his hundreds of dollars an hour fee to go over a legal matter for a creator who pleads abuse and poverty, and the money out of my pocket did not get the creator the answer they hoped for – i.e., they’ve got a loser of a case. Bummer for them.

However, if you don’t believe me, or if you don’t believe my lawyer WHOSE BILLS ARE PAID BY ME O, Clueless One, then you STILL could have gone to the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS to get an independent assessment, which appears to be something you did not do.

Like I said, Darwinism.

So, don’t be low critter on the food chain. When your funds are limited and your grievance is genuine, contact the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS, and do what smart people do.

They don’t get mad. They let their attorneys get mad for them.

By the way, I would like to point out that the person who first directed me to the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS was Bill Mantlo, a former comics creator who took up the law as a public defender. Mantlo was badly injured in a freak accident while rollerblading and has been living with brain damage ever since.

Mantlo did me a great service, spent hours with me going over my case, helped secure me a link up with the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS, and kept in touch with me until the matter was resolved. My total financial outlay over several year’s worth of legal struggles was only $1,000. I call that a bargain. It saved my project A Distant Soil.

I am eternally grateful to Bill Mantlo. Thank you for your kindness, your decency, and for giving me the information that I was able to pass along to other creators who also had very satisfactory results with the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS.

In fact, the next time I donate to a legal fund, my money is going to the VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS.

VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOR THE ARTS SERVICES, all right there online for anyone to read, any day, any time, for months and months and months:

About Us

etc…

But wait! there’s more!

VLA is deeply grateful to the hundreds of law firms, individuals, foundations, corporations, and government agencies for their extraordinary generosity during Fiscal Year 2004-05. This year VLA raised over threequarters of a million dollars from our Special Events, Foundation, Government, Law Firm and Corporate Membership programs.

During the past five years, VLA’s activities have been particularly supported by our law firm and corporate members. The list of members continues to grow. As of June 30, 2005, there were 30 law firm and corporate members. The level of law firm and corporate support also continued to grow. VLA received its first and largest corporate membership contribution at the $25,000 Patron level from Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP.

Wow. Look. Real money. Real lawyers. Real power. Real experience.

Really good idea.

c

This article was originally written several years ago on the old blog, and has been moved here complete with most of the comments. The material is still timely!

Following up on our jolly article about Mark Twain’s get rich quick schemes, the sad truth is there is no surer way to get poor quickly and permanently than by becoming a writer.

While a very small percentage of writers rake in the cash, the low income echelons increase as the internet and book pirating cut into writer’s profits. According to this survey, the average writer in Britain makes no more than 4,000 pounds per year (about $6,000)! Of course, many of them continue to believe they will break that exclusive club of top ten percent of income earning phenoms, despite all evidence to the contrary.

“Jane”…is now on her fourth book, in her forties, with a devoted band of readers. They see her on stage at literary festivals, elegant and eloquent and just a little bohemian, and think: “There is a writer who’s made it.” They don’t know that the advances have dwindled down to £10,000 a time (from which the agent and taxman take their share; and for a book that usually takes about two years to write). They don’t see the bills threatening to make her sell her house.

Jane doesn’t want me to use her real name in case it upsets her publisher or fans. Neither does she want them to know that she works in the local Waitrose for cash, as well as teaching and tutoring.

“People come and see me all bright-eyed, dreaming of being a writer,” she said.

“They’ve got the idea that anyone can do it. That’s what people think: that it’s so easy. I wish! I tell them I’ve been training since I was seven.” Others do have talent. “They tell me it’s their calling. I say it will have to be. I don’t want to crush them, but the best advice if you want to eat is: ‘Do something else.’”

Copyright pirating, especially online, is a major problem for writers (and artists) whose work can be downloaded for free at any time. Writers are desperate to come up with ways to make the internet pay, but many consumers who use the internet are accustomed to getting their entertainment for free. They see no reason to buy a book or piece of art when they can have it from websites around the world.

A…crisis meeting (was) called by the ALCS at the British Library on Thursday, but some of the most distinguished names in British literature were there to discuss the plummeting income of authors and the copyright issues that threaten to make it worse. Some raged against Google’s plans to make whole books available online for free. The poet Wendy Cope lamented the ease with which you can download her own works and those of other poets for free.

“With every new technological development, our copyright becomes more precious,” said Maureen Duffy, writer and honorary president of the ALCS, “and yet seemingly less understood by those who want to use our work.”

As for artists, a professional’s income averages about $15,000 per annum, and some must now compete with websites offering high quality, downloadable images for sale, or cheap, hand painted knockoffs with no royalties paid to the artists, to say nothing of the large numbers of scanned comics now available. (more…)

In light of the recent legislation banning the sale and distribution of children’s books manufactured prior to 1985 because of fears about lead or something – I thought we’d have a look at some of my loot.

Unless those books have undergone expensive tests for lead, or if you can somehow declare the children’s book a vintage collectible – word is you cannot give any of these books to a child, and you cannot sell them.

But wait! Do we contradict ourselves? Yes, we contradict ourselves:

The new safety law does not require resellers to test children’s products in inventory for compliance with the lead limit before they are sold. However, resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content, unless they have testing or other information to indicate the products being sold have less than the new limit. Those resellers that do sell products in violation of the new limits could face civil and/or criminal penalties.

So, if you think it doesn’t exceed the lead limit, sell at your own risk. Right? And if it turns out my ancient paper exceeds the lead limit of 600 parts per million, if I put it in the hands of some paper-sucking tyke, I could go to jail. Right? But I won’t know unless I have it tested. Right?

Unless I sell it all to an adult as a collectible vintage item. And they can suck all the lead bearing paper they like. Right?

And don’t you think it’s a crying shame they have to post addendums to this dumb law? Because you’d think they’d have thought these things through before they passed it.

But no.

The situation is extremely fluid and every day this week ALA has received new and sometimes contradictory information.

That’s a comfort.

Since none of my kiddy books are worth big sums of money, can they be considered collectible? Where do I get my collectible certification? How can I afford it?

I don’t want to go to book jail!!!

I love my old Andre Norton books. None are particularly valuable. But, now they are illegal if I let my family tykes have them! I could get a $100,000 fine! Holy crap!

It’s like waking up one day and finding out tomatoes are illegal.

So here’s my contraband – I mean – my private collection of highly valuable and collectible goods I would never knowingly place in the hands of a child lest I give them reading cancer. They will be stored in locked cabinets along with the guns, the ammo, and my secret stash of uranium:

All of you out there in cyberland: what’s your book poison? What nefarious ancient volumes make you an outlaw?

My God! The horror! This 1904 copy of Little Sir Galahad by Lillian Holmes only cost me $1 on the secondary market!

Holy Mary Mother of God, won’t someone think of the children?

Any little tyke could afford to buy this tome and suck the ink right off the pages, no doubt giving them a fatal case of reading cancer within days of exposure! Perhaps they will decide the staples in the binding look just like chocolate! And then they could choke to death while trying to lick them!

Of a surety, this book should get the torch.

It is inscribed on the frontspiece, no doubt to make it seem even more harmless to potential buyers. It is a thing of the devil!

“With Best Wishes for a Happy Christmas, to Joel Barren Jr from Cecile Carlyle, Christmas 1916.”

Isn’t that awful? It all looks so…so innocent. And yet, it is obviously such a dangerous item your Congress has decided it should never be given to a child.

Whew. Let’s move along. Here’s a book that cost me $30. I’d say that places it out of the reach of most kids, but since most children’s book cost about $20, maybe not.

It kills me to think this 1943 edition featuring illustrations by N. C. Wyeth is getting tossed in dustbins from flea market to flea market. Mine’s pretty beat up, and it’s not a first edition. Does that render it not collectible? Not vintage?

And how about this beauty? I bought this for 50 cents at a library book sale. Little Timmy and Little Sarah will not have that opportunity now. It’s a good thing because we wouldn’t want to give them reading cancer:

Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle, with gorgeous thick paper and handsome, clean, black and white illustrations. Destined to give your kiddy something fatal. Like, the ability to understand words like “yclept” and “methinks”.

This is a spectacularly stupid law.

They will get my books when they pry them from my cold dead fingers, those book hating swine Congressmen!

Shame on them! Tsk.

This doesn’t sound promising, though: The Bill passed the House 424-1 and the Senate 89-3.

But then, common sense in an uncommon virtue among that lot.

• The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act goes (went – I pinched this from Publishers Weekly) into effect February 10 and requires third-party testing of all products for children 12 and under, including books, audiobooks and sidelines. This includes older products on-shelf as well as books shipped after the deadline.

• AAP and other industry trade groups are lobbying to have print-on-paper and print-on-board books exempted. They also are looking for clarification on testing protocols and other specifics.

• If the Act stands as currently written and interpreted, significant costs and longer production times will negatively affect publishers and retailers, potentially putting some out of business and causing books to be removed from stores, libraries and schools.

• The industry is struggling to comply with the Act in time for the deadline, even as it waits for resolution and interpretation from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

For the latest updates and clarifications, go to CPSIA

If you can understand this monster document of legalese blather, you are smarter than me. I saw no exclusion for books, but I did laugh when I got to the paragraph about the Paperwork Reduction Act.

Paperwork.

Reduction.

Act.

Toss a book in a bin, that’ll do it!

.

c

August company. I am extremely flattered to be on the same cover with these people. But alas, this is the final issue of Write Now. A real shame, these were good magazines. Is there an online alternative in their future?

You can get it at the publisher’s website. You can also buy any back issue at great discounts, or go whole hog and get the lot for $67.50.

Here’s a podcast interview with editor Danny Fingeroth. Do check it out. Danny has lots of interesting things to say about the industry.

Not a stretch to suggest that many magazines of this sort will be going home to Jesus. It’s all online now. But how to finance the new model?

Online, there’s no big bucks needed for printing, and you reach tens of thousands of people easily. Every day is a convention. But you have to be pulling in thousands of hits every day to really make money on ads.

I am often asked how much traffic I get and if I make any money at this blog thing. It’s hard for the average reader to tell what we’re getting from looking at Alexa or Technorati (especially since the recent revamp and move destroyed our stat rankings.) Comments are no indication of traffic, either. This Neil Gaiman photo from last month got 5,000 hits in two days, and only eight comments. Neil’s Twitter link sent so many people here, we overloaded the very unhappy server.

(FYI: People tend to comment more when they argue, actually, so if I were to post something vile implying Neil Gaiman supports child molesters because he stands up for free speech issues, as opposed to my posting cute photos of Neil, we’d get a lot of comments. Mostly angry ones. And deservedly so…and, um, no, I don’t think Neil is enabling icky child molesters.)

BTW, pop this link and scroll down for a look at Neil’s very first published illustration: a parody of Watchmen called Watchdogs.

(more…)

France cracks down on piracy. One step closer to the Three Strikes Law. Info from The New York Times and The Telegraph UK.

If a user made another illegal download within three months, a second warning would be sent by certified mail. If a third infraction occurred within a year, the service provider would be required to sever service.

Piracy costs the film and music industry in France at least 1 billion euros, or $1.3 billion, a year in lost sales, according to industry figures.

UPDATE: French vote AGAINST. And more HERE.

New laws to combat internet piracy make drastic cuts in internet traffic:”Internet traffic in Sweden fell by 33%…”

Pirates hope to combat anti-piracy laws with their very own political party.

A wacky lawyer uses odd tactics to make his point about file sharing. This behavior appears to be a tactic to get the lawyer lots of attention, but I don’t see how it is going to do his client a damned bit of good.

A consumer group protests the Google/ Writers Guild Settlement:

The most favored clause should be eliminated to remove barriers to entry, the letter states, adding that “it is inappropriate for the resolution of a class action lawsuit to effectively create an anti-compete clause.”

The LA Times on those naughty cartoons by the co-creator of Superman. The exhibit included a live demonstration of ladies whipping people.

The BBC on life without political cartoons.

Noble Gryffindor Aurors find pot farm in Slytherin Student’s crib.

Drug squad officers swooped on 19-year-old Jamie Waylett — famed as bullying Hogwarts School pupil Vincent Crabbe in the wizard movies — after a tip-off.

Lifted off of the comment thread of a copyleftist website. Which won’t get a penny from me:

Artists have no more inherent right to make money with their creative output than anyone else.

Discuss.

c