I was surprised to find Timucua Arts Foundation of Orlando Florida used art from the Analog Artist Digital World website to promote a concert where tickets were sold for $30 each without my permission. There were about 60 people in attendance. That is $1,800 raised before expenses. Granted that isn’t like the earnings of a Taylor Swift Concert, but it was using the art for profit.
The art was cropped and then semi transparent shapes were thrown on top of the the sketch. Unfortunately that is the world we live in where everyone thinks they are a designer since they have Photoshop. and or In Design.
Leah Nash from Timucua reached out several times to apologize and Benoit Glaser the Timucua founder apologized from the stage when I attended the concert. Twice I was told that no one had any idea why the image was lifted. I reached out to Benoit via e-mail but he wasn’t sure why the art was used without my consent. Erik Branch at the venue was also unaware what happened. All I needed was some explanation, so I could avoid this happening again. My work has been lifted many times in the past by local organizations, and each time this happens the copyright symbol gets bigger and darker on what I post online. I heard that AI makes it easy to remove any watermarks so my attempts to control usage are becoming mute.
Charles Griffin the organizer of the Composer’s Forum reached out to me and he showed me digital paperwork from many years ago where permission was requested to run the image on their composer’s online Forum. I donated a one time usage and paperwork was filled out to that effect. I am guessing that organizers had forgotten that only the one time usage was granted. Charlie said that he and all the composers donate their time to make the concert happen. An olive branch was offered and accepted. I turned the flame down on the burner and the steam stopped hissing. The story had a resolution.
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