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Designers and professional art directors know there are plenty of career opportunities to take the easy road to complete jobs. It's littered with Google images, online download sites and image banks where one might find a photograph or illustration suitable for a comprehensive or research material for an illustration. It is much easier to ask permission than to use material illegally. Why risk it when you might get famous in the process and end up surrendering half of all your earnings plus punitive damages due the originator of the work you "borrowed"? My advice is don't even think about it. Jeff Koons makes a very good living selling stuff he calls art; though taking a postcard of a group of dogs shot by professional photographer Art Rogers and shipping it off to Italian artisans to have it reproduced as sculpture is not art. That pseudo art sold 3 sculptures at $367,000 each. Rogers, who owned the rights to the photograph used on the postcard, sued and won. The court found "substantial similarity" and that Koons had easy access to the picture; as a result, the sculpture was judged a copy of Rogers' work. Koons attempted to use Fair Use laws as a defense but lost anyway.
Down & Out
My worst nightmare became reality when I hurt my back. I had been freelancing for about 3 years, but still hadn't accumulated enough regular work to buy health insurance. Besides, I had jobs with design studios and small companies at various times during my career that didn't provide employee benefits, so it wasn't something I missed. It's a common occurence in the commercial art industry; margins are so tight, many employers simply cannot meet the rent, pay the salaries and offer a competitive benefit package. Freelance teaches you a deep appreciation for employee benefits, but perhaps not enough to give up freedom (yes, put on your best Mel Gibson blue face, thank you).
This is a good time of year to remember small kindnesses from casual acquaintances; those who spend valuable time assisting others in spite of their own heavy workload. Perhaps you are one of the people who do random acts of kindness on a daily basis. It's a simple philosophy of helping whoever, whenever one can, without judgment, reason or expectation. The payoff works both ways. You get to relieve universal stress and set an example, sometimes one that will affect the recipient for a lifetime. All those generous experts at forums and on lists pertaining to subjects like web design are donating billable time—random acts of kindness are something you can do, too. A couple of weeks back, I stopped at the post office with my final shipment for Christmas. My freelance work doesn't require anything beyond jeans and a t-shirt; I fit in real well with the rest of my rural locals. A well-coifed woman in a mink coat was behind me in line. As I started out for my car, I heard the clerk tell her she was a dollar short. "Oh dear, oh, dear. I'll be right back." As she turned to run out to her SUV, I pulled a crumpled dollar out of my old down coat and said, "Here, save yourself a trip." She was both mystified and delighted; though somewhat wary. Picture the humbled principal on the bus in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when offered some warm gummy bears by a runny nosed kid. Good for her—perhaps she will see the pleasure in doing random acts of kindness and pass it on. We all make judgments; especially aesthetic judgments. But it would be a wonderful thing if we could withhold forming an opinion until there was some basis beyond appearance for forming one. If we applied the same weights and measures to food that we apply to people, no one would eat chocolate. When presented with an opportunity to close the gap between complete and incomplete, seize the moment and become the resolving link.
My friend, the hoity-toity designer, bought several houses the last time the economic wheel hit dirt. He rented them out and had quite a nice piece of pocket change. When property values plummeted, unemployment rose and tenants decamped, he couldn’t pay the mortgage on some of those empty houses. He walked away. I was at his house one day when the phone rang. “Hello?” he answered, “yeah, just a minute, I’ll get him.” Then he set the phone down and continued our conversation on the dying art of marker comps. After about ten minutes, I reminded him about the caller on hold. “No worries, it’s just a collection agent. I like to tie up their line and let them sweat it out. After a few times, they just give up.” No fear here.
The Consumer Credit Protection Act lays out the rules for collection agents. One thing you can do to end those calls is send a certified letter telling them to stop calling you. They are obligated by law to stop and if they don’t, you can sue them for 3 times the amount of money you owe them plus any punitive damages the court will allow.
