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a topic for dinosaur artists
In 1996 I wrote a book titled "Copyrights, Contracts, Pricing and
Ethical guidelines for Dinosaur Artists and Paleontologists" and it
was distributed without charge to everyone in the field by the
Dinosaur Society. The subject of working for the movies was written
by Bill Stout. The first half, relating to copyrights and contracts
is still up on my website, dinoart.com. Obviously, the part relating
to pricing guidelines is a fluid thing and so, I do not have it on
the website, but it is that part - pricing guidelines - which I would
like to research and update and distribute, especially in these lean
times. I ask the list's indulgence - this seems the best way to do it.
My biggest concern is not pricing for original work, although that
seems not to be keeping pace with cost of living in a way we all
might hope - what has? No, my big concern is resale of images, and I
want to have a dialogue with artists on the list about this. I am
concerned the art market is becoming unstable in this aspect to the
detriment of all dinosaur artists and we can stop it if we
communicate with each other. I am only talking about commercial use
of images. It has always been considered an honor to have a
paleontologist ask to use an artist's image for a talk or paper and
no artist should ever charge for that.
In a stable art market, tradition dictates the artist would re-
license an image for one-half the fee he or she would charge to do a
comparable original. In 1996 the price for an interior color life
restoration was stable at $100-$300. Artists in attendance at the
Bozeman SVP in (I think) 2001 re-set the lower limit to $300 with an
upper at $500. (discounts allowed for multiple images purchases). As
far as all of us who made that pact to agree - this is still in
effect, and might be considered reasonable today, given stagnancy in
wages in North America generally since then. I would like to hear
from artists what they think about these numbers. I have begun to
suspect that there is, in 2009, no standard in the market and I will
tell you why I think it is imperative that one be established.
Many artists might be tempted to think of any offer to re-license one
or more of their images as "found" money and do no negotiation when
the offer comes along. OK, you could look at it that way, but every
time you re-license an image that means you are not being paid to do
a new one. So the difference between you re-license rate and your
regular rate is actually the amount you have lost. These are lean
times for publishers too. That is probably why I am seeing the
increase in requests for re-licensed images as opposed to original
work. I am both sympathetic and cynical in my attitude toward
publishers. Sympathetic, because the individual editors and
publishers I know are under harsh constraints to put out quality
books although they are given meager art budgets. Cynical, because
publishing sales people would not know a quality book if they tripped
over it, IMHO. And what I see on the shelves is unnerving. There
are so many books on the shelves with re-used images that I fear it
will not take a sales force long to conclude that the "dinosaur
craze" has run its course and the editors do not outrank a sales
force in any publishing house I am aware of - so the market will
dissolve.
Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm wrong, but with communication - we artists
can control prices and - by raising prices on re-uses, make buying
original artwork more reasonable and revitalize a stagnant market.
Please let me know your thoughts and fees and reasons for those
fees. If you want to send me numbers privately please do so off list.
I will tell you that we at Walters & Kissinger charge a minimum of
$300 for a re-licensed image and have occasionally gotten $500 and up
- though not from a publisher. We are successful at that rate. You
would be too if you are not now, if we standardize the rate.
Let me know what you think.
Tess Kissinger