Something that continues to puzzle me, and has done for years: People getting all hot under the collar about intellectual property and the possibility that their childish stuff might get photocopied or used without authorization somewhere on the web.

Yet the same people will regularly use, on their commercial products, significant, worthwhile artwork for which they pay nothing, and which they CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO SOURCE. Here is an example: Porcupine's Quill's The Sound of All Flesh, by Barry Webster, 2005. You can check out the Amazon listing.

The painting on the cover, which I would argue practically makes the package, is André Derain's “Arlequin et Pierrot”. You can look at a decent reproduction here. I am looking at the book now, in real life, and on no part of the product is the artist's name or the title of his work mentioned. I've seen the painting before and couldn't remember the artist, so I had to search for it under “Pierrot + Harlequin + painting”, etc.

To the poeple at Porcupine's Quill it's just a nameless image, like clip art. And the funny thing is all publishers do this, and so do many designers, so there's no point in complaining. But there's also no point in their worrying about their copyright claims, because the original content of their products tends to be worthless and unlikely to be ripped off.

Labels: Crappy Books with Other Peoples' Important Paintings on the Cover