Pawning your artwork

There is an interesting article in the NY Times about Annie Leibovitz, and other artists, using their artwork, and the rights to their artwork as collateral in order to borrow large sums of money. Kind of interesting.

Here is a link to the story.

Personally, I think the word "pawn" is quite low-brow in a situation like this. I don't follow the NYT but have heard a couple of other complaints of things like this recently - maybe the paper is trying to reach a different audience...? (sigh)

Her images, as well as those of other big name photographers are pretty secure in their worth I'd say. Look at the auction of Yves Saint Laurent's art collection in Paris that just happened - many millions of dollars changing hands regardless of the economy. It's hard to say what this work would have sold for two years ago and maybe it's taking a hit today, but still obviously worth a lot of money. So, she's making a business decision by doing this, and it's good she has this option available.

Interesting. She could lose the rights to all her images, past and future. No way I'd ever do that, and I'm a part time pro.

Wow! Oh Annie, honey, that's no way to work for yourself, now you work for the loan sharks, forever! Ouch! Sometimes you gotta think all of this stuff can't be worth it, right? I guess that's what's happened everywhere right now though, the eventual come uppance of stuff is hitting a lot more than just Annie Liebovitz hard.

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Originally Posted by another view

Personally, I think the word "pawn" is quite low-brow in a situation like this. I don't follow the NYT but have heard a couple of other complaints of things like this recently - maybe the paper is trying to reach a different audience...? (sigh)

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If she's gotten herself 16 million dollars in debt, I have no problem with lowbrow terms. It may be a business decision, but sure sounds like a knee jerk reaction to a lot of other bad business decisions she's made. Wasn't it Ray Charles that said "You ain't a junkie until you can't afford to support your habit anymore" ? Whether you use high-brow or low-brow terms to describe it, it's unpleasant and unfortunate, but she didn't get into this situation overnight either.

Annie is potentially in big trouble. At least heading towards a financial reorganization at the very least.

Signing away future 'rights' was a huge decision and might affect client contracts. Can she legally 'work-for-hire', and does she retain any contractual ability to assign rights to work? Lots of questions including if the Art brokers get to license the work in the meantime. This seems to be a rather extreme response or solution.

There's another article link
http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2009/0...d-to-sell-her/

that adds several topics of interest and some more links about AL's current situation. Not quite a perfect storm, but close for some things including real estate holdings and back taxes.

Annie has always been know for being excessive to say the least. Her business savvy has also been a bit questionable when some of her shoots run way over budget and her famed Chelsea studio was rumored for years to never have been truly profitable.

It's too bad, but the reason underlying this most likely, that the real estate market collapsed as quickly as it did and left her with what is most likely a huge mortgage debt.