Garbage Photographer Writes Open Letter To Band About Respecting Artistry

Bianca Gracie | April 3, 2015 11:00 am
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This current musical situation is what we’d refer to the pot calling the kettle black. Back in February, Garbage’s Shirley Manson penned an open letter to Kanye West after the Beck fiasco at the 2015 Grammys. The rock band frontwoman told the rapper to grow up and said he was “disrespecting artistry.”

Fast forward to now, and Garbage has received an open letter from their photographer — Pat Pope. He wrote the statement on Facebook in regards to the band wanting to reuse his work in a coffee table book without paying him extra.

“The email says that you really like some of the photos I took of you and would like to use them in your book,” Pope states. “It also says that in return for the use of my photos you will give me a ‘proper credit’ but that given it is planned to be a self release the budget is ‘financially limited’, by which your management company mean ‘we’re not going to pay you’.”

The photographer continued, “It seems to me that the person who writes down ‘zero for photos’ today is the same person who will write down ‘zero for music’ tomorrow because they don’t respect the ‘content providers”.’

Whether it is music or photographer, art is art — point blank. Just like how musicians are claiming to take over their content with vague streaming services like TIDAL, other artists in different fields have a right to be compensated and respected for their work.

Garbage has since responded to Pope’s open letter on their Facebook page, where they said:

“Before we scrapped the idea of producing the book entirely, we decided instead that we would take a leaf out of Amanda Palmer’s book ‘The Power of Asking’ and simply ask the photographers themselves whether they wanted to be included in our book or not. Any refusal of permission would be respectfully accepted and no further questions asked.”

Do you think Pat Pope is right in his argument? Let us know in the comments below!

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