Given the dramatic increase in coronavirus cases in the United States in the past week, we are already hearing from event photographers and others in our ranks about significant rises in the cancellation of assignments or postponements by clients. To assist members during this time of uncertainty and some fear, ASMP is focused on publishing information about the coronavirus pandemic grounded in facts, while also upholding our responsibility to be a steadfast advocate for our…
ASMP Members, Colleagues, and the Entire Visual Creator Community, I joined ASMP 41 years ago in 1979 when I was early in my career, co-sponsored by two fellow Florida members who were my mentors at that time. Part of my decision to join was based on the way I saw ASMP support fellow photographers and enhance their careers. Fast forward to a point in late 2014, some 35 years later, and I was given the…
As we move into the period of another ending year, major holidays loom. One is Thanksgiving, a time when we gather with family and friends to share and give thanks for the abundance in our lives. While the origin of the holiday may belie the harsher realities present in the national experience from even before our nation’s formal founding, it also reflects some of our deepest aspirations for summoning up the “better angels of our…
In the past few months, our advocacy counsel Mike Klipper and I have been working to advance ASMP’s priorities for 2019, before Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO). We met in December with representatives of other groups championing the interests of visual artists to plan our strategy for 2019. For example, along with those visual artists groups, we met with Karyn Temple Claggett, the Acting Register of the U.S. Copyright Office, members of her…
Happy New Year to all of you and I hope you have enjoyed a restful, joyous holiday season. I start 2019 grateful for your support of ASMP and eager to continue to move forward together. The New Year’s period has always been for me a time for reflection and the setting of new compass points to guide my life journey.  As 2018 makes way for this new year, I have been thinking about the impact…
Over the past week, our Copyright Counsel Mike Klipper and I have been busy in Washington D.C. laying the groundwork for our federal legislative agenda in 2019. This week’s activities followed closely on the heels of a very successful hearing on September 27, 2018, on the CASE Act before the House Judiciary Committee; the hearing described in Jenna Close’s recent article, Advocacy is a Verb: My Testimony on the Hill. At the hearing, Jenna joined…
I want to wish everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Â I hope you all have time to step away from the challenges and stresses of daily work to spend quality time with family and friends, sharing blessings, joys, and laughter. It is also a time to reconsider how we can use our talents, time, and resources to give to others around us who may simply need our attention and support. Â For me, Thanksgiving is deeply intertwined…
Last week, I was out of the country attending the annual World Congress for the International Federation of Reprographic Rights Organizations (IFRRO) in Athens, Greece. Â While there, I learned of two terrible things happening in the United States – 1) the murder of two African-Americans in Louisville, KY as an apparent hate crime, and 2) a spate of mail bombs sent to members of the media and prominent politicians, including two former presidents. Â Then after…
ASMP is deeply saddened by the shooting on June 28 at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland. Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith and Wendi Winters were killed in their newsroom, and others were wounded. We support their families, the staff at the newspaper, and journalists everywhere who work to inform the public. This terrible tragedy that has just happened is now all too common in this country. Â The reality is that violent…
We continue to work for passage of HR 3945, the CASE Act, as a means to resolve a historic inequity that has left you with “rights but not remedies” under the current copyright system. Â We are awaiting a markup hearing for this bill, hoping to get it out of the House Judiciary Committee with an overwhelmingly positive vote and then to the full House before the August recess. I have sent out this letter urging…