Rob Tornoe: Je Suis not getting paid

Comments ⁷

1. Steve Artley

   Rob, send them a nice letter thanking them kindly for electing to use your rendering in their publication and attach an invoice.

2. Scott Stantis

   Just think of the exposure, Rob!

3. Sara Thaves

   Twitter’s terms of service support this. When one sends a tweet, Twitter is thereby granted very broad rights to the content of that tweet …. on a royalty-free basis. The experience with the Charlie Hebdo cartoons helped to bring this to light.

   Cartoonists are particularly vulnerable to the Twitter TOS given that their genre is one of a few that may be fully exploited via Twitter. Movies? no. Columns? No. Images? Yes. Going forward, I hope that more cartoonists include links to their cartoons as opposed to images. This will help to protect their own work and, in the process, to support the value of all cartoons.

   Twitter’s terms of service are here: https://twitter.com/tos

4. Sara Thaves

   And – kudos to Matt Bors and Jen Sorensen for noting this and for paying for the content that they use. Of course, they are not the only sites to pay … but the perception that cartoons = free is certainly wider than it ought to be.

5. Rob Tornoe

   Sara, strictly speaking that’s not 100 percent accurate. When you post your images on Twitter, you’re granting them a “worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense).” It basically covers the ability of publishers to use Twitter’s content on their websites, which means embedded, re-tweeting, etc.

   Posting to Twitter does not give anyone license to just take your work and repost it. So while newspaper websites are allowed to post round-ups by embedding Tweets, they are not allowed to take your image and throw it into a gallery without any embed from Twitter.

6. Sara Thaves

   Could be, Rob. There may be something I’m missing. If I understand what you’re saying, a website can embed a cartoon if it is tweeted by the cartoonist. Have I tracked on that correctly? If so, I”m not sure I follow the point about re-posting.

   Either way … Somewhat ironically, it was your cartoon on this page that helped to bring this issue to the forefront for me: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/media-dont-glorify-charlie-hebdo-racism-support-cartoonists-exploiting

   It notes that you were paid for this by Erin Polgren – which is great. And, at the same time, the “Editor’s Note” explains “In line with our standard editorial practice and Twitter?s terms of use, yesterday TPM embedded tweets of editorial cartoons which had been tweeted and thus shared by the artists themselves.” In other words, we used cartoons we obtained via Twitter for free.

   As you noted, Rob, Twitter’s TOS does provide for sub-licensing and royalty-free usage. The complete paragraph reads: You retain your rights to any Content you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying Content on or through the Services, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute such Content in any and all media or distribution methods (now known or later developed).”

   This poses a real challenge for cartoonists. Setting aside the question about the extent to which a cartoon that is tweeted may be used, there is no question that embedding leads to fewer opportunities for licensed cartoons. Twitter has been helpful for some especially given that Twitter is great for timely content. But – tweeter beware – Twitter has written their license to put their interest way, way, way ahead of yours. The TOS gives Twitter and sub-licensees the ability to generate revenue from a cartoonist’s work without recognizing the cartoonist’s interest in their work.

   I’ve probably said too much – and we haven’t even touched on the “adapt, modify” part of the license.

7. Darrin Bell

   Same thing happened to me. Lesson learned, no more tweeting anything but links.