It’s seems this week is going to keep revolving around art stuff that pisses me off. This time, it’s Obambi campaign and it’s attempt to get artists to work for free.
President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign is asking artists to design promotional posters that convey a message: “support American jobs.” The brutal irony for artists, however, is that they will receive no payment for their work.
The campaign, which has $61 million on hand, will reward only the three artists whose work is selected for use. The compensation? A copy of their artwork, signed by the president.
Oh, goody-fucking-gumdrops!!! He’ll sign the fucking thing and THAT is what he considers payment??? Yeah, that and $3.50 will get me a cup of shitty coffee and a doughnut.
“To add insult to injury,” the guild’s letter said, “the contest rules state that all artists who submit work to the contest grant the Obama For America campaign an unrestricted unpaid irrevocable license to use ALL of the submissions, not just the winning entry.” Each contestant can enter five designs.
Furthermore, the guild pointed out that “there’s no promise to even give the artist credit when her/his work is used.”
Isn’t that just so special. You can lose the contest and they will STILL be able to use your work, only this time no signed copy for you! LOSER!!!
It’s a damn shame that so many in the art community supported this piece of shit when he ran for office. I remember fellow students parroting of the BS lines of his campaign and how he was going to “Heal the world” unlike that eeeeeevil Bushilter!! Well guys, here’s your payback, now the SCFOAMF doesn’t even want to pay you for your work From each according to his ability and all that.
But wait! There’s MORE!!
“It gets worse,” the letter continued. “Entering the contest means that you agree to the contest rules, and indemnifying the committee is part of the rules, so you agree to defend the campaign committee and yourself against an infringement claim at your expense.”
That’s right kids! You agree to pay to defend his campaign and foot the bill for them! Isn’t that nice of him? Makes you feel like a valuable member of the Obama Team, doesn’t it???
As I have said many times before, we artists are PROFESSIONALS! We work very hard on our skills and for anyone – and especially this fucking hack of a human being – to think that we should just bend over and take it up the backside is horse shit!
I can’t count the number of times someone has said to me “Gee, can you do a drawing of…” and we aren’t talking about a quick sketch or something, I mean a full range drawing on good Bristol board that would take anywhere from 10-15 hours work and then would expect that I should just do it because they asked. And this isn’t family members or close friends either, they know better, I’m talking the girl that sits two cubes away from me at work that I never speak to but she decided that a drawing of their ugly kid would be the perfect Christmas present for Dad.
This though is ten times worse. I can (for the most part) forgive ignorant people, but this is a very carefully constructed setup that if you step into it for any reason, gives away your work with no guarantee of any recognition at all while the campaign stands to make quite a bit of money off it.
You get screwed without the benefit of a reach around and Obambi and his crew get the spoils. Yeah, spreading the wealth around is good for everyone, right? Right?
Best part:
Tim Dickinson of Rolling Stone wroteWednesday that “the folks at [the] Obama campaign have taken a page from the Arianna Huffington book of economic exploitation.” Dickinson suggested that the campaign consider an additional slogan: “Fuck You. Pay Me.”
No shit.
