Creative Artists Declaration of Creative Independence
July 4, 2007
Welcome to the Free Articulator. We are not ready… there is much still to be done, but we can wait no longer while the world declines before our very eyes. We take our stand now with this Declaration and let the chips fall where they will. We launch today, the 4th of July, a day America has claimed as its Independence Day and which we now claim as Creative Independence Day.
Creative Artists Declaration of Creative Independence
We, the undersigned Creative Artists, in order that we may better serve our society in its time of need, hereby declare ourselves independent of the current traditional industry of art & entertainment in order to exercise our Creative Rights, extending from the rights of free citizens living in democracies.
We hereby recognize that the current system of art & entertainment, an industry we helped create for the betterment of mankind, has been subverted to the use of the wealthy. The products we create intending to help mankind achieve greater heights of existence and quality of life have become the tool of the rich and powerful, who have used the great wealth generated by our work to further oppress and stifle mankind and the free flow of observation, thought and imagination in the marketplace of ideas.
Every initiative taken in the last several decades to establish successful models that would promote the cause of liberty, life, the human spirit and alert mankind to the real dangers created by a small cadre of extremely powerful and wealthy individuals has been swallowed up using the systems of government, rule of law, commercial oppression and the very revenue we helped create, and used against us.
Where we created property inherent with rights we owned, the industry of art & entertainment has sought to disenfranchise us from those very rights, seeking control through methods of chicanery and corruption that thwart all that is decent and good in mankind, and demonstrate the only sort of creativity and imagination that the individuals who run the business of show business are capable of, that which elevates their status, power and wealth at the expense of others around them.
We hereby declare that our rights are no longer for sale and only available for limited lease subject to immediate termination or temporary suspension should we become aware of complicity or duplicity on the part of any partner engaged in production of our works with us.
We further declare that the moral rights of authors are no longer subject to negotiation, or to be sidelined and made irrelevant. The work is our work, not the work of partners brought in after the fact to help realize not only the commercial exploitation of the work, but its distribution for the benefit of all humanity and civilization. Our moral rights as authors are our guarantee and surety that our works will not be subverted by those who lack the sophistication, wit or commitment to mankind’s welfare that is at the heart of every Creative Artist, and their generosity.
We declare that our works are no longer up for grabs at any cost.
The industry that relies upon our works to attract the attention of the public so they may sell advertising has become a channel of communication that no longer serves the purpose of entertaining the public, but which works solely to promote and sell the fruit of the earth without any concern for the preservation of mankind or life itself
We recognize that the broadcast channels are no longer serving a message of freedom, but oppression, and we declare that our works will no longer be made available to such channels and that we will develop our own so that we may fulfill our traditional calling and the purpose which has always driven our hearts and our imaginations.
We recognize that the welfare of mankind is not the purpose of the industry of art & entertainment and that its only purpose is to make money, and control the flow of information and ideas to the marketplace so as to achieve nothing more than the oppression of the intellect, the subversion of emotional intelligence and the consumption of products unnecessary to a balanced life without want. We no longer support such an abuse of our talent, our purpose or our works.
We hereby declare that as free Creative Artists, we will do everything in our power to find and work with men and women of goodwill who embrace the true purpose of the arts to help us undo the corruption that has brought the world to the brink of disasters unimaginable and which we sought with our works to avert.
The degradation of our creative lives and its subjugation to trivial and private matters designed to ruin our reputations and deprive us of the dignity and respect we deserve, by virtue of our commitment to humanity, is abhorrent to us. Our lives and our work were never meant to be so dishonoured or respected by the very media that earn their living from the work we create. We declare that we will no longer seek and cooperate with the corrupt media and press of the broadcast news and print media, rather we will rely on people to find us and promote us as they always have.
We declare ourselves free of the arrogant myth of the industry and business of the art & entertainment industry, that states that our works are the result of collaboration that could not be created and distributed to the public without the involvement of the industry. That may once have been the case, but your abuse of the privilege, trust and faith placed in you, has come undone. We see who you are, we know what you do; we declare ourselves free of such arrogance.
We declare ourselves responsible for the state of our industry and for the condition it has placed humanity in, where the fare delivered to the hearts and minds of men has been developed to disenfranchise them of real thought, real feeling and caring. We reject these methods of perception control as an abhorrent, inhumane and intolerable utilization of communication channels, the arts, skills and talents of creativity. We and our works will no longer support the use of distribution channels utilized to oppress and reduce mankind to subservience and compliance.
We declare ourselves free of monopoly and the influence of corporations and organizations who use the wealth and power they have extracted from society to secure themselves their position at the expense of the economic and democratic freedom and liberty of their fellow man.
We declare that we will no longer remain, nor be kept, ignorant of the business of art & entertainment but shall dedicate ourselves to becoming experts in our business so that we will no longer be at the mercy of those who under the tarnished banner of trust and the guise of professional ethics, employ business models and practices to deny creators the fruits of their creative labor and the investment of their lives in work intended to help all mankind live and develop a greater quality of existence.
We welcome those who share our principles, and demonstrate their commitment and dedication to them.
We invite all creative individuals in any of the artistic disciplines to sign this declaration by leaving a comment on this post. You are welcome to utilize and disseminate this document under the terms of a Creative Commons License.
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I hereby sign this Declaration of Creative Independence.
This Declaration of Creative Independence is long overdue for those who truly create the industry and provide it with the material that makes it possible for it to exist. The ways in which we and our work have been maltreated and abused by this industry are manifest and manifold, it is high time this changed and by the way, I did not write this, if you’ve been involved in this industry in the last 50 years, you wrote it, for it is a synthesis of all that is wrong and that we have known about, heard about and experienced directly and indirectly. This is a step forward and it will take courage to make it real, I’m committed to it have been for the better part of my life, and I firmly believe that this is one way to bring some sanity to a world that surely needs it. I do hope you will join us in this effort.
~V
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