London, UK 11 April 2011; A new campaign launched today setting out a Bill of Rights for all Artists and supported by organisations from around the world. It updates and expands the Bill of Rights campaign initiated in 2008 by the photographer's organisation, Pro-Imaging.org.  The campaign is presented through a website at http://www.artists-bill-of-rights.org and is now available in over 40 languages.

The campaign promotes the rights of creative people of all disciplines, music, photography, video, film, fine arts, writing, etc. It is independent, and open to all artists' representative associations. Representative associations can undertake all the campaign activities and have access to the campaign website to create and publish content credited to their association.

Campaign Supporters;  On the campaign website the supporters of the Artists Bill of Rights are promoted. The artists' representative associations currently supporting the Artists Bill of Rights are -

• Advertising & Illustrative Photographers Association, New Zealand
• Association of Professional Photographers, Iceland
• Association of Photographers, United Kingdom
• Australian Commercial and Media Photographers
• Australian Institute of Professional Photography
• British Institute of Professional Photography, United Kingdom
• British Photographic Council, United Kingdom
• DJ:Fotograferne, photographers within the Union of Journalists, Denmark
• Editorial Photographers of United Kingdom & Ireland
• Pro-Imaging Organisation, United Kingdom
• The National Press Photographers Association, United States of America

In addition to the artists' associations there are many private and public sector organisations who have proclaimed their support, all of whom are promoted on the Artists' Bill of Rights supporters page.

Campaign Aims; The campaign has the following aims;

• To provide a means whereby all artists' associations can unite around a common set of standards for preservation of their rights.
• To promote the Bill of Rights' standards for the preservation of artists' rights in competitions and appeals seeking creative works. (Consideration may be given to widening that remit in future, e.g. to contracts.)
• To promote organisations who support the Artists' Bill of Rights and to promote their competitions and appeals.
• To educate the public about the purpose and value of their intellectual property rights and to enable them to recognise when they are being exploited.
• To publish reports about the extent of rights grabbing and to analyse and quantify the rights grabbed by the private, public, charitable, and non-profit sectors.
• To press for legislative changes that would protect the public from unfair and unethical terms and conditions that seek to exploit their intellectual property rights.

About Artists' Bill of Rights; This is a collaborative campaign to be operated by the associations who wish to actively participate. We invite all artists associations to support the aims of the Artists' Bill of Rights and to contact us via the website to support the campaign, and, if they can, to actively contribute to the campaign. For further information please visit the 'What can you do?' page on the campaign website.

 

Author: ACMP