Petition against the Graphic Artist's Guild

Based on many of the deleted posts from this blog that have for me, raised multiple questions (for example the use of foreign funds to host an open bar at ICON) , artists have put together the following petition.

Please feel free to email me to have your name added.

PETITION

It has come to our attention that for an unspecified number of years (but apparently for more than a decade) the Graphic Artists Guild has been receiving artists reprographic royalties entrusted to them from certain foreign countries. We understand that the Guild was obligated to use these funds for the good of the entire industry and not to benefit or prejudice any particular individuals or organizations.

Since it appears that Guild leaders have refused to account for their use of these monies, we have no way of knowing how much the Guild has received, but at the recent open forum at the Society of Illustrators, they reluctantly acknowledged receiving over $400,000 in 2007 alone.

We now understand that these royalties are the earned income of illustrators from all genres of illustration and are not Guild-generated income. As members and former members of the Guild, we were never made aware that these royalties even existed until it was brought to light by circumstances following the first Illustrators Conference in Santa Fe New Mexico in 1999.

Following that conference, a grassroots team of illustrators, advised by internationally respected attorneys acting pro bono, attempted to create a collecting society to begin returning reprographic royalties to illustrators. These actions were opposed by Guild officers using personal attacks and defamatory charges.

We have now been made aware of minutes from a Guild steering committee meeting dated Jan 8, 2003 which indicate that at the same time as Guild leaders were attempting to discredit this grassroots movement, the Guild was facing a financial crisis brought on by “gross mismanagement.” These minutes specify that the Guild’s officers planned to “rectify the situation” by increasing “their” “income from foreign reprographic royalties.”

These actions by Guild leaders to discredit a legitimate effort by illustrators has clearly been prejudicial to the interests of American illustrators. Just as the Guild’s apparent use of artists’ royalties to cover up their mismanagement of funds has clearly benefited the Guild and its officers at the expense of others.

Therefore we, the undersigned, do hereby acknowledge as fact that:

1. The Graphic Artists Guild has been collecting, for an undisclosed number of years, and without accountability, artists royalty monies from overseas collecting and distributing agencies.

2. The terms of receipt of these monies by the Guild is to benefit the entire field of illustration without preference or prejudice to any individual or organization.

3. Yet the Graphic Artists Guild has systematically attempted to discredit a legitimate effort by illustrators to bring accountability to the collection and distribution of the funds, and therefore

4. We charge that the Guild has misused artists royalties in a doubly inappropriate manner.

Based on these facts we, the undersigned, believe that the Graphic Artists Guild is not representing our best interests and we condemn the officers of the Guild for their apparent abuses of both the finances of illustrators and the trust of our industry.