Pro-Action

Pro-Action: Visual Artists in Business

Campaign and Liaison Group

Making a living from the visual arts isn’t getting any easier. Negotiating the pitfalls of bad contracts and exploitative small print can be frustrating. Luckily, awareness of the problem is growing, and visual artists are not alone.

Pro-Action was established in 2006 and primarily represents the interests of commercial visual artists, helping them to protect their copyright and get just rewards for their creativity and hard work. But Pro-Action is also here to advise commissioners and publishers on agreeing terms that are in everyone's best interests long-term.

To register your interest in our campaigns please endorse our online petition at pro-action.org.uk.

The Pro-Action committee deals with the problems visual artists in today’s market place. These include fee erosion, copyright grabs and the issuing of retrospective contracts from commissioners.

The organisations who are members of the group are:
Association of Illustrators
Society of Artists Agents
Association of Photographers
Professional Cartoonists Organisation
Also Robert Lands, Partner at Finers Stephens Innocent, and Independent legal advisor: Ruth Gladwin, media lawyer.

Pro-Action has challenged various companies on their contract practice. These include News International (The Times), IPC, The Guardian, Future Publishing (Computer Arts) and Cambridge University Press.

These cases cover the company's response and Pro-Action's recommendations, and can be viewed by AOI/ SAA / AOP/ PCO members with a password. Please contact your respective organisation if you have forgotten your passwords for viewing Cases and Advice sections.

Aims

Our aims are to tackle fee erosion, increasingly detrimental Contract terms from clients, and issues that may arise visual artists and their representatives. These factors have increasingly become a negative force effecting creators of visual material working in the commercial communications arena over the last twenty five years.

We have commenced with the following points:

• Inequitable/not legally sustainable contracting practice (such as retrospective contracts)
• Inequitable/not legally sustainable contracts (such as copyright assignments)
  The group intends to educate and demonstrate to the commissioning sector the way their contracts may damage their supply base by eroding illustration as a viable profession and therefore damaging the sectors own best interests over the medium to long term.
• Agent to illustrator agreement
  The group drew up a recommended best practice agreement between agent and illustrator in 2009.

Mandate

• To send representative(s) to the Council meetings of the British Copyright Council (BCC) and the Creative Rights Alliance (CRA). The representative(s) have the duty to report back to the committee either in writing or in person to keep the committee informed of all proceedings at all times.
• To liaise with all trade-organisations, societies and lobby groups working with and for creators of images that are used and created for the commercial market place.
• To recommend that contracts extended by commissioning companies or individuals are in keeping/in line with the spirits, intent and letter of the law as stated in the 1988 Copyrights Design and Patent Act
• To propose appropriate action to Boards of member organisations when the committee sees fit.
• To develop a stock image policy and recommended standards of management that can be proposed to Boards of member organisations.

Representatives

The Pro-Action committee consists of representatives from each member organisation. Also Chairman Robert Lands, Partner at Finers Stephens Innocent.

Stephanie Alexander-Jinks

Stephanie is a Director of The Artworks, and has been an agent since 2004. Prior to this she worked at the Association of Illustrators, where she gained her passion to campaign for and represent illustrators of all levels of experience, to promote them and protect their creative rights. The Artworks is a member of The Society of Artists Agents (SAA).

Trina Wydmanski

Trina is the founder and director of Phosphor Art illustration. She has been an agent for 29 years and before that an Art buyer in the advertising industry as well as teacher with a degree in Graphic Design.

Passionate about illustration and illustrators' rights she has recently joined Pro-Action and is representing the SAA together with Stephanie Alexander.

Derek Brazell

Derek is AOI Special Projects Manager and an established illustrator. He has advised AOI members on contracts and licensing for many years, as well as covering these topics for AOI publications. Derek was invited to join the Design and Artists’ Copyright Society (DACS) Creators’ Council in November 2006, and is Visual Arts Director on the Board of the BCC.

Andrew Coningsby

Andrew founded the illustration agency Début Art in 1985 and the illustration specialist Coningsby Gallery in 1994. Début Art is a corporate member of The Association of Illustrators and a member of SAA. Andrew is dedicated to the advancement of illustration both as an art form and as a highly valuable commercial property.

Ruth Gladwin

Ruth is a self employed solicitor who has been advising fine artists, illustrators, photographers and designers for over 20 years. She has witnessed the enormous changes to the technical landscape and the advent of new media. She also acts for television producers so knows the other side of the commercial coin. Ruth is fully aware of the demands placed on creators in today's market place and is at hand to advise on the legal implications.

Robert Lands

Robert is a partner in the Intellectual Property and Media department of leading law firm Finers Stephens Innocent. He advises on all facets of the visual arts, acting on behalf of several well known artists, photographers and designers as well as trade bodies such as the AOI. He advises the Arts Council of England on intellectual property issues and writes and speaks regularly on visual arts and the law, including to students at both The Royal College of Art and the Royal Academy Schools. He also sits on the Advisory Board of Braziers International Artists Workshop.

PCO

Members of the The Professional Cartoonists' Organisation (PCO) attend Pro-Action meetings. PCO was formed in 2006 to promote the art of cartoons in the UK. They publish traditionally and digitally with FOGHORN their bi-monthly humour magazine and a week-to-week rolling news service called Bloghorn. The PCO fully supports the AoI's Pro-Action initiative to ensure artists' rights are not eroded, especially in the transition to digital publishing.

Gwen Thomas

Gwen is Executive Director Business & Legal Affairs at the Association of Photographers. She campaigns for photographers’ rights in the UK and EU and advises members on copyright, contract and ethical matters. She is a Director of DACS, Vice-Chairman of the British Photographic Council and General Manager of Pyramide Europe, a European Economic Interest Group for the visual arts. Gwen is co-editor and contributing author of Beyond the Lens, the AOP’s definitive guide to rights, ethics and business practice. She has also co-written Whose Rights? a book published by Pyramide Europe examining restrictive contracts increasingly being forced upon artists throughout the EU.

www.pro-action.org.uk
Pro-Action c/o AOI Second Floor, Back Building. 150 Curtain Road, London EC2A 3AT.

The Association of Illustrators www.theaoi.com

Association of Photographers www.the-aop.org

Society of Artist Agents www.saahub.com

UK Professional Cartoonists Organisation www.procartoonists.org www.thebloghorn.org www.issuu.com/bloghorn

Finers Stephens Innocent LLP www.fsilaw.com