New ways of marketing. New kinds of weapons.
Now this one is really crazy.
In our all-mad-about-YouTube times one of the photographers from a very freedom-loving folk who got upset by the Terms & Conditions of Corbis´ "I am buried" marketing campaign has commissioned a poem from a professional poet to better express his feelings in this matter. I guess rarely anything similar has ever happened.
As for Corbis, it is indicated that they have learned from this affair. Photographers close to the Anti - I am buried campaign disclosed that their protest will continue by indicating that it was now about "getting regulatory changes made to prohibit the acquisition of rights for free by such terms and conditions, and that the Corbis competition had simply been a catalyst for such a movement."
Plans are currently to make representations to the European Commission, in conjunction with other representative bodies in the creative industries.
The aim of these representations will be to introduce EU regulations clarifying the law, making it clearly illegal to attempt to acquire artist´s rights from the entrants to any competitions by the organisers or sponsors.
Full text of the poem below.
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!
(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling
- the artist would have understood:
'though not to Corbis, who may not yet...)
© Bryan Islip www.picturesandpoems.co.uk
Related:
- Corbis won´t change the rules of the I am buried contest (Sept. 14, 2007)
- Smashing deal from Corbis (Lightstalkers, thread started yesterday)
- Corbis I am buried competition (Alamy Forum)
- Corbis´statement on recent irritations regarding their "I am buried" marketing campaign (Sept. 06, 2007)
- I Am Buried in the Fine Print (PDNPulse)
- Extreme Retail Therapy: Corbis launches "I am buried" campaign, who wouldn´t want to join? (Sept. 04, 2007)
