{"id":1643,"date":"2016-08-29T10:40:24","date_gmt":"2016-08-29T14:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=1643"},"modified":"2016-08-29T10:40:24","modified_gmt":"2016-08-29T14:40:24","slug":"where-theres-a-will-theres-way-happy-relatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/?p=1643","title":{"rendered":"Where There\u2019s a Will, There\u2019s Way Happy Relatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest acts in the history of Motown was the Temptations, who 46 years ago famously sang:<\/p>\n

“Ball of confusion, Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today, Hey hey!”<\/em><\/p>\n

They were right on then and they\u2019re right now.<\/em><\/p>\n

When Prince died without having a will people were truly shocked. That a man with a net worth upwards of 300 million dollars (and counting) would not have had a will drawn up to distribute his assets and provide for the distribution of future revenues, was just about not\u00a0believable.\u00a0 When a former housekeeper and baby\u00a0sitter named Vivian Maier died in 2009, nobody noticed. She did not leave a spouse, children nor any property of consequence – or so it seemed.<\/p>\n

After unknown Chicagoan Vivian Maier passed, and now her name is known to all, her trove of photos of ordinary people was “discovered”. It set forth a\u00a0bizarre\u00a0series of events\u00a0culminating\u00a0in about as confusing legal case as there has ever been, and now her name become known to all.\u00a0 A cogent retelling of her story and the quagmire it\u2019s become today can be found\u00a0in this article<\/a> in the Toronto Star. We suggest you read it before continuing here.<\/p>\n

A “ball of confusion”? Ya think!\u00a0Could spending a few hundred dollars to have a will drawn have prevented it all? Oh yeah!\u00a0 Will many lawyers make loads of money while the “owners” of the images are stuck in\u00a0neutral? But of course.\u00a0 No doubt Ms. Maier had no idea of the commercial value of her work during her lifetime and likely never considered it valuable since so many rolls of film were never processed.<\/p>\n

Among all the pieces, there is just one aspect of this puzzle that is beyond dispute – a will could have permitted\/directed the sale, exhibition, licensing or gifting of these images to anybody or any entity. The responsibility for the supervising such sales, licenses, preservation etc. could be given by Ms. Maier to whomever she believed was best suited for such tasks. Rather to people she never knew or had any connection. There would be no disputes as exists today. No headlines and all these lawyers would have to find billable hours elsewhere It\u2019s yet another “ya never know’. In other words, ya never know what one or more of your images might be worth next year or a decade from now.\u00a0Your \u201cnothing today\u201d might turn into historical gems like Ms. Maier\u2019s. The fact that the government wants in on the heady money her images seem to be worth in the fine art world, assures that this case will drag on until the Cubs win a World Series.<\/p>\n

As we have urged, cajoled and written many times, every artist needs to have a will drawn which will provide for the distribution or sale of his\/her work. Any lawyer with even a single digit IQ will tell you that “No will means chaos on the horizon”. The Temptations were far more articulate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest acts in the history of Motown was the Temptations, who 46 years ago famously sang: “Ball of confusion, Oh yeah, that’s what the world is today, Hey hey!” They were right on then and they\u2019re right now. When Prince died without having a will people were truly shocked. That a man […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,3,374,100,15,5,411,20],"tags":[597,596,594,595],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-be-aware","category-copyright-registration","category-fine-art","category-in-the-news","category-legal","category-paperwork","category-quotes","category-stuff-you-should-know","tag-ball-of-confusion","tag-temptations","tag-vivian-maier","tag-will"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1644,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/1644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecopyrightzone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}