P.S. I was not complaining about lack of acknowledgement as part of
journal habit in my case. It may be worth it for artists to always
try to secure that sort of acknowledgement, but in the cases where
more than one hand has contributed to an illustration, such as if
lithography or engraving comes back into vogue, acknowledging each
artist in the figure could be unwiedly.
- DMV
-----Original Message-----
From: "Demetrios Vital" <demetrios.vital@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 14:40:41
To: DML<dinosaur@usc.edu>
Reply-To: demetrios.vital@gmail.com
Subject: Re: dino branding
Hello all,
One salient point regarding signatures on technical works is that
artists/illustrators rarely have the option of putting a signature
on technical scientific illustration. Within paleontology, my
illustrations of skeletal elements and life restorations have
typically been attributed by the authors with a variant of "Thanks
to D. Vital" in the acknowledgements.
Within entomology, my technical illustrations have at times been
unacknowledged (by name) in journals depending on journal practice
(i.e. If there is no acknowledgement section, there aren't
acknowledgements).
The habits of individual authors and journals don't necessarily
allow artists to have technical work attributed. And there are
those who say that technical illos. are scientific evidence, so a
signature would be inappropriate.
So, unfortunately, self-attribution is not a straightforward issue.
This question has been raised in the course of this debate, most
recently by David Marjanovic and Henrich Mallison. Copyrights are a
messy issue, of course, so this is just one more variable to consider.
Cheers,
Demetrios Vital
-----Original Message-----
From: David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>
Sender: owner-DINOSAUR@usc.edu
Date: Mon, 14 Mar 2011 10:44:23
To: DML<dinosaur@usc.edu>
Reply-To: david.marjanovic@gmx.at
Subject: Re: dino branding
They also clarify comparison between species. Even if different
artists have created them.
I'm sure this is exactly why many of the more scientifically artists,
Scott Hartman for instance, have imitated this pose. I absolutely
do not
understand why anyone would assume evilness a priori.
reaction:
Wrong, wrong and wrong. IF pose were copyrightable, it would be
attributed to the first instance - not to the most consequent
repetition. The pose is useful for transmission of scientific
knowledge about a species and therefore needs to be out there - imo
for ethical reasons. Finally, I would be very surprised if pose
can be
subjected to copyright.
Seconded.
What might be considered unique to Mr Paul's illustrations is his
application of the pose in question to _all_ limbed vertebrates, even
those incapable of running (they're shown walking as fast as
possible),
even those that may never have walked or swum fast at all (I'm not
sure,
but I think he has illustrated temnospondyls that were probably
obligatorily aquatic that way). But for cursorial dinosaurs it's
now the
industry standard; early in this discussion I compared it to the
history
of the word "walkman", with the difference that "walkman" _was_
originally intended as a brand name rather than as the word for the
kind
of device it designates.
I agree with Heinrich that this demand on pose is damaging to your
own
declared purpose of defending valid copyright issues. It is a lost
battle and rightly so. The true battle about your artwork will be
hard
enough to fight.... all you are doing is shooting yourself in the
foot
and mocking the respect that generations of artists have for you.
Also seconded.
Eventually the pose became my brand.
Well, no. You just made it a trend; I can't see how you own the trend.
Another comparison: In 1988, Gauthier (with coauthors) coined the name
Archosauromorpha and defined it as the archosaur total group
(everything
closer to archo- than to lepidosaurs). In 2004, he had moved on to
giving all total groups the name of their crown group with "Pan-" in
front, so he used the definition of Archosauromorpha for Pan-
Archosauria
and gave Archosauromorpha a new, node-based definition. No. This
hasn't
been accepted. Gauthier came up with the name, like you came up
with the
successful correction of Bakker's pose; he doesn't own it. The name is
out there in the community, it's in widespread use, he can't call
it back.
Here's a reason it can be important to
protect this sort of thing. Say someone has published a large
number of
side view dinosaur restorations all in the same pose that most
researchers
consider high in qaulity, and everyone comes to recognize as having
been done by
that guy.
See, that's already a highly arguable point. I don't know if more
people
thing "Gregory S. Paul" when they see that pose than think "that's how
-- for, presumably, some reason -- skeletal restorations of dinosaurs
are traditionally done, because all or almost all I've ever seen
are in
that pose".
As Heinrich pointed out, you don't sign your restorations. I don't
think
all that many people know that most of the restorations they've
seen are
by you.
Say someone else is doing their dinosaurs in the same pose, but
are doing a very bad job of it with sloppy rendering and inaccurate
proportions and so on. This can confuse viwers and adversely impact
the reputation
and value of the original artist's body of work.
Only if they assume that everything in that pose is by you. You
have not
yet shown us evidence for this assumption.