Infected Worldmind
Who am I?
I'm general counsel for a medium-sized tax-exempt organization that helps court-involved and other at-risk populations clear barriers to success in the community.
I'm also a development/fundraising professional and provide legal advice and guidance to start-up entertainment firms.
I'm a contributor to Funnybook Babylon and my ever-expanding bookshelf is here. I infrequently write about food and take pictures.
I'm also the happiest newlywed in the world.
That's everything.
I share some thoughts about Brandon Graham’s King City, Raekwon, Ghostface Killah and RZA’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx and the joy of being asked to fill the gaps for Funnybook Babylon. Unfortunately, the only Jay Electronica reference is in the title.
[King City]’s co-owned, I think it’s about 60:40… whatever that means. [Tokyo Pop is] basically just involved in this book…and I’m bad with contracts, obviously. The main thing that caught me up with them is that there’s this stipulation in the contract that says about “print”, and that they’re allowed to put it on the Internet and call it “print”. If I had changed that one thing in the contract, then I could have just waited a year and all the rights would have come back to me.
…..
These days, actually, I don’t know if it’s the smartest thing, but I try not to sign any contracts. Like, with Prophet, there’s no contract at all. I’m vaguely aware of the history of things like that, and what happened between Alan Moore and Liefeld. So, if the rug got pulled out from me tomorrow — I wouldn’t like it, but I wouldn’t be completely surprised. I always joke — a friend of mine was talking about how he wants to go work at DC, and I’m always like, “Have you not seen that they just shit on people at a certain point? Don’t get really successful!” I try to be aware of that kind of stuff. Stephenson being involved gives me a lot of faith because he’s really impressed with — even though I don’t always like the books that Image publishes — with the way that they treat the creators and the way that they treat the work. It’s just ideal.
-Brandon Graham, in an ECCC interview w/ Bleeding Cool’s Gavin Lees. This is a fucking tragedy. I really hate this industry.
We need more legal clinics or pro bono initiatives that offer business transaction counseling in the i.p. area for creators. A creator like Graham shouldn’t have so little negotiating power/leverage that avoiding written contracts becomes a rational choice. Ugh. Abhay’s right. This is the worst fucking hobby.
