Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Could it be? Could it possibly be?

The L.A. Times reports on what the industry is looking into to explain falling ticket sales – and it isn’t piracy.

“It’s really easy for all of us to blame the condition of the theaters, gas prices, alternative media, the population changes and everything else I’ve heard myself say,” said Sony Pictures Vice Chairman Amy Pascal, whose summer releases “Bewitched” and “Stealth” flopped. “I think it has to do with the movies themselves.”

After months of hand-wringing and doomsday forecasts about the permanent erosion of moviegoing, the lunchtime chatter at Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills and other industry haunts has turned decidedly inward. Now, four straight weekends of crowded theaters have forced moguls and creative executives to admit in public what they have spent months avoiding: They were clueless about what audiences wanted.

Even more amazing, this isn’t the first such article that I’ve read. Variety’s print edition a few weeks ago (Variety, by the way, is a daily publication) ran an article buried in the back of the paper in which movie executives lamented their bad decision making and nobody even once mentioned piracy as a reason that movies are not selling as many tickets.

Apparently, it has finally happened. No matter how loudly they said it and how many times they said it, the movie industry wasn’t able to make it true – and now they have to own up to the fact that the numbers don’t support them.

Yahoo! News has a story about the publishing industry picking up on an issue a little over a decade later than the recording industry hit it.

More than 111 million used books were purchased last year, representing about one out of every 12 overall book purchases. By the end of the decade, the percentage is expected to rise to one out of 11, a troubling trend when sales for new works are essentially flat; authors and publishers receive no royalties from used buys.

“Obviously, these are not statistics to warm the heart of publishers,” says Simon & Schuster spokesman Adam Rothberg.

The BISG, a nonprofit organization supported by publishers, booksellers and others in the industry, reports that price is the greatest appeal for choosing used books over new ones. While hardcovers often cost $25 and higher, used books purchased in 2004 averaged $8.12 — except for text books, which averaged $42.31.

Yes, it’s the return of the Mother of All No-Starters, an attack on the sale of used [fill in the appropriate media].

I won’t deny that the publishing industry has its issues. There are some severe stumbling blocks on the way to profitability when it comes to publishing – high overhead for a printed product, a dwindling market, and a business model that’s stuck firmly in the Dark Ages and can’t be budged even with a long enough lever and a vantage point on the moon, for starters. But telling people that they can’t re-sell something that they bought is a cause that you just can’t find support for.

In part because it goes against our grain. What? I paid $8.99 for this paperback book and now you’re going to tell me that I can’t re-sell it for a fraction of its original cover price? That’s just un-American! I bought it, I own it – even if I don’t own the rights to the material inside it, I own the physical object and should be permitted to sell that physical object when I am through with it. That’s just the way the American consumer is used to conducting business.

And also, we as consumers have a certain irrational fear (well, maybe not so irrational, now that I think about it) that if we allow this to happen in one area, it will quickly spread to others. If we allow the publishing industry to stop the sale of used books, then we wake up tomorrow to find that we can’t re-sell our old computer – not even with all software and copyrighted material wiped from the hard drive – because the sale of used computers is driving down the business of low-end computer manufacturers. Suddenly, I can’t trade in my used Buick on a used Volvo because the sale and exchange of used cars is hurting the car industry – and the next thing you know, you have to bulldoze your house and sell the plot because – while they’re not making any new dirt – the construction industry is being hurt by the sale of used buildings.

This, of course, is a ridiculous inflation of the issue. But it’s not without precedent, and it occurs to everybody at one point or another in connection with this issue.

Between Google Print and the new rumblings over used books, however, it appears that the print industry is finally catching up to the RIAA and MPAA.

BBC News reports on famous living painter Vettriano’s assertion that he doesn’t copy his paintings out of books.

His spokesman at the Portland Gallery in London, said: “It has been interesting to see the level of media interest in the ‘story’ being run in today’s Daily Record concerning Jack Vettriano’s use of a teaching manual as an aid to some of his early paintings.

“It is widely known that Jack is a self-taught artist and it seems unsurprising that as, in his early painting years he had neither time nor the money at his disposal to work with real life models, that he should use a teaching manual such as this.”

He added: “Vettriano’s skill lies in his ability to create narrative paintings with which the viewer becomes involved.”

At this point I would like to be perfectly blunt and say that I find no narrative content that involves me in “The Singing Butler,” but that’s not really the interesting point here.

The interesting point to me is that I’ve often wondered what happens to a professional artist’s early, learning works when they become popular. So much juvenilia has been published over the years that it reaches a point of sheer overload. Picasso’s scribbles, C.S. Lewis’ notebooks, Shakespeare’s Latin primers – everything that an artist ever laid hands on becomes sheer gold, and that leads to later questions of authenticity and plagiarism.

At this moment, I can walk to the local bookstore and purchase an armload of artist’s reference books. On my own bookshelves I have at least three “Anatomy for the Artist” books from the days when I was convinced that I could actually hold a pencil. These books are supposed to exist for the benefit of those of us who don’t have access to life-drawing classes and studio time and budgets. Using these books, such artists are supposed to be able to perfect their form and learn the basics of their art.

So what happens then when an artist uses the books in such a way and goes on to become famous? Apparently, they get accused of plagiarism. And an argument could be made that such an accusation is accurate – but also that these books are published with the purpose that they be plagiarised. Should an artist be forced to burn all of their juvenilia simply because they once based a painting on a pose from an artist’s reference book?

August Wilson – 1945-2005