Alec Hutson: Artfully Creating a Living
As I continue my research into the relationship between copyright laws, intellectual property, and royalty free materials, I wanted to get a personal perspective on who these laws were written for. It’s easy for many of us with fixed incomes to take these laws for granted. But for those who pour their passion and energy into their art and even depend on them to make a living, these laws set a principle: that creations have value that ought to be protected.
On Friday, I met up with Alec Hutson. Alec is a musician in a band called Bulldog with one of my friends from high school. Alec doesn’t just play with Bulldog, but is also an independent musician. Additionally, the modern day Renaissance-man works in his own design company Warbird Creative while still finding time for personal artwork. I reached out to Alec for this interview to get a better sense of how someone can independently build a livelihood off of their own creations. My hope is that this interview can help give some context around who this boring legal document known as U.S. Code Title 17, or copyright law, was written for.
What kinds of arts or creative works do you make?
My primary thing is music: songwriting, performing, general music making. I also write poetry, make graphic art which you can see around the room. I make some sculpture and pottery, but those are all secondary to my music.
What are the means you have of making a living off of your various art forms?
I make the biggest amount of money off of video production and graphic design. Certain performances pay but not well enough to live off of, so I end up having a full time job to support my full time job.
So, what makes one of those art forms easier to make a living with?
With video in particular, I can find gigs where I’m filming for the night or a few hours. You can charge a certain amount of money and then you are done. After that, you don’t have to think about it and then you can move on. However, with design, logos can take the better part of a month to finish, and sometimes you get clients that stretch it out even longer. There’s a lot more communication involved in doing design work.
In your personal or contract work, do you often interact with copyright laws or claims?
Not often. I haven’t gotten to the point where I’ve noticed anyone stealing my work. Whenever I use other people’s photography I make sure to either get their permission or cite where I got it from. I use a lot of royalty free stock images for my design work.
Where do you go for those royalty free images?
I use Unsplash a lot. Images there are free and royalty free, but if I can fit it in the budget I’ll go to stock image sites like Shutterstock. Generally, I try to avoid using other people’s stuff and instead use my own. I can’t always do that, and I don’t always have the time to do that, but whenever possible… especially because I don’t know a lot about copyright law, I tried to avoid anything to do with it by making my own materials.
Are any of your materials published?
My music is up on BandCamp, iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, and YouTube. My artwork is up on my website, Facebook, but not any publications that I can think of. My video work is up on various sites, including my music videos and documentary work.
Are any of your works published in a monetized sense by you or your customers?
A couple of my YouTube videos are but I have never seen any revenue off of it. iTunes and Spotify are supposed to be making me some money at some point but these are recent endeavors. As for third parties, not that I’m currently aware of but it’s really hard to know. I have recently set up google alerts with my name but people can still post your work without crediting you at all.
Have you caught any of these instances?
There were times where videos of my old a cappela group, The DooWop Shop, got reblogged without any sourcing on channels that are clearly monetized. But that wasn’t soley my work.
Do you ever publish work in a place where other people have the ability to manipulate or use either to be a part of the sharing community or to get exposure?
I haven’t yet… I actually just gave my keyboard player the recording stems from a couple of the songs off the CD and he’s been remixing them, and it sounds really cool. One of my other friends has asked to do something similar, so I think I might start. It’s a really neat thing I hadn’t thought about before.
I asked Alec if I could include the file but he said he doesn’t have it published anywhere because it’s a work in progress. Instead I’ve included another of his original pieces below.
When you are producing your work, are you ever afraid that your work could be so derivative or similar to another work it could be a potential problem if it became widely used?
That is a consideration early on in the creative process for me, to the point where I typically won’t release something that I’m worried is to similar to something else. For me, a big part of what I do is original, inspired, and genuine, so it doesn’t make sense for me to be creating work that is derivative of someone else’s.
What is the future of contracted arts in being able to access material and get your customers the art that they are looking for in the digital era?
There’s a difference for me between client work and art work. Client work, you are supplying someone with what they are looking for. Art work is what you are creating for yourself. I’m not making this music for anyone except for myself. I’m creating my music and art as if I am creating it for an audience of me. And sometimes I’m not even doing that, some of this stuff is therapy almost where the process of making it is more important than the result.
In terms of client work it’s hard to say what should happen. On one hand, you have the designers who are trying to meet the demands of their client. On the other its almost impossible to pay for all the materials you need. Over the past 10 or 20 years graphic design has become more and more crucial for a company’s legitimacy. That means that a lot of people who really need it can’t really afford it. So there are lots of short cuts being made: websites with very discounted design, you might get garbage, but the fact is the value of design work gets undermined by that process. People don’t see the need to spend the proper amount of money which forces designers to cut corners. They might take free images that don’t fit project or find loopholes to get away with using paid images for free. It creates hard environment and that has been making me want to step out of design and more into video.
Alec isn’t alone in this notion. In a 2012 Poll on Graphicdesign.com 93% of respondents said they felt the industry was devalued.
This is what I have experienced in the freelancing world. It’s different for advertisers in an agency with high paying clients. I’m talking about the entrepreneurs and small businesses. But there are also very real big risks with being a small business owner. Issues of price wherever they are going because its easier to be screwed over when you are a little guy.
Do you get nervous about anything you produce going elsewhere, but do you think there’s anything that can be done to prevent that?
No. If someone really wants to rip me off they can do it. That is just how it is. And if I spend my time working about that, then I won’t be making things, I’ll be worrying. If this is something that I’m worried about all the time there’s no way that I’m going to make things.
Lastly, intellectual property in the United States, takes 70 years after death to reach the public domain and become freely available again. Do you think that’s too long?
I think seventy years is around the amount of time it takes for people to forget about the original work: after there has been a considerable cultural shift. It’s nice to have this older material recirculating into use. Copyright exists to protect the personal and financial well being of the artist, family, and rights holders. If they last for much longer you’ll essentially have copyright that will restrict creativity. It’s almost impossible to know if you are doing something someone else has done […] over 100 years ago.
When I sat down to interview Alec he confessed that in no way he felt like a copyright expert. But he knew a lot more than he was giving himself credit for. Copyright have woven it’s way into his consciousness. He, like many other artists, worried about publishing works that felt too similar to the artists that inspire him. He intentionally avoided using outside material, even when he could cite it. He had a lot of pride in the works he could say we’re wholly his own.
Copyright law has become an embedded part of our culture. That pride that Alec feels in his original works, I believe is in some part, due to the cultural environment created because our government has taken a firm stance on protect original works. Alec mentioned at one point during the interview that his grandparent in particular constantly hounded him about filing copyrights for all of his work. His grandparents aren’t copyright scholars or lawyers, but the laws outlined in Title 17 have made it into their consciousness and transpired in an emotion that seemed to come up over and over again in the interview with out being said once: pride. Copyright doesn’t just protect finances of creators, it protects the pride they take in their work.
I walked into the interview thinking of copyright as something that protects the financial interests of large entertainment corporations. My goal with this interview was to understand how copyright effects the financial well-being of the independent artist. But what I discovered is how copyright law effects our culture of creativity, by protecting the pride of those who dare to create something entirely new.
