The title is a little joke about how in the UK you need a licence to do anything. I talked about copyright 4 years ago relating to YouTube guitar teachers and fair use, but this time we’re talking fan art!
There’s few things more heartbreaking than seeing your heroes act completely contrary to their image. There’s sayings like never meet your heroes or you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. This second line is especially the case in classic rock. Lately I’ve seen a lot of disappointing, out of pocket, behaviour from boomer classic rockers like supporting fascist politicians (looking at you, Mike Love), saying transphobic things (Carlos Santana, Alice Cooper, Paul Stanley), and now cop behaviour: policing fan art and punching down. I have a radical take on copyright, as I talked about in my last blog post about Mick Jagger and now I’m going to dive even deeper into it and unapologetically defend the little guy. Sorry classic rock bands, you’re not the little guy anymore. This makes me think of The Who’s “The Punk and the Godfather”:
“You declared you would be three inches taller
You only became what we made you
Thought you were chasing a destiny calling
You only earned what we gave you”
– Pete Townshend
Don’t put celebrities on pedestals. Celebrities are human beings, albeit way more talented and rich than the average person. Don’t be afraid to disagree and think for yourself. Fandom isn’t a cult! Be yourself and be true to yourself. Any reasonable celebrity can accept that. I pride myself on my integrity and while I love classic rock more than anything in the world, I am not afraid to criticise the bands I love when I think they’re in the wrong.
The fanart’s taken all my dough …Or Kopyright Kinks
It brings me no joy to call out one of my all-time favourites, The Kinks. I didn’t expect this behaviour from them. That’s something I’d expect from a bigger group like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. As I’ve written about before, The Kinks made the most socialist rock music of the 60s, in my opinion anyways. Sure we had socialist folkies like Phil Ochs, but The Kinks made rock and roll. Politically, they walked so Pink Floyd and The Clash could run.
The story starts on Dave Davies’ Twitter account. His Twitter account is a joy to follow because he posts a lot of unintentionally funny things. His account is easily one of my favourites. I genuinely think he’s a total meme and watching boomers say funny things on social media is part of the fun. Lately, he says some outlandish stuff to get attention and it’s usually to sell something. It’s all part of the game. The Kardashians do it. And I guess Dave followed their lead and starts shit on Twitter because he’s got something to sell or promote. Earlier this year, he beefed with a leftist Twitter user named Juniper because she tweeted “there’s a band called “the kinks” what is this society coming to this is sick” as a joke around the time that The Kinks band name was censored on Twitter because of some dumb arbitrary Elon Musk thing.
It resulted in Dave tweeting some funny things like “purple pudding 🍆” and “At least I have a proper name”. He overreacted over a joke tweet and at one point, briefly blocked Juniper, who said that she actually likes The Kinks and she was just joking. If that happened to me, I think that would kill my love for the band. That’s not the best way to treat a fan, even though he did unblock her. So it definitely seems like he has a history of being a bit trigger-happy with the block button (nothing wrong with blocking people, but don’t be surprised if people don’t support you anymore – you don’t owe anyone anything but others don’t owe you anything, unless there’s a contract of course!). Around that time, The Kinks were releasing their umpteenth greatest hits compilation, no tea, no shade. How many greatest hits compilations do we need? Anyway, because of this, Dave Davies became a main character on classic rock/music twitter, once again.
And now Dave Davies is back in the Twitter spotlight again and starting beef with fan artist Mark Reynolds that goes by Stuff_By_Mark (give him a follow!). Mark posted an old Hanna-Barbera style drawing of The Kinks on his Twitter to promote his RedBubble shop and Dave Davies saw it. Senpai noticing you sounds like the dream, but it wasn’t the right kind of “senpai noticed me!” Instead of Dave giving a lot of praise for the beautifully done fanart, he told Mark that he was flattered but he must take it down because he didn’t have a licensing agreement. Literally the “Oi m8, you got a loicence for that?” meme in real life. He’s acting like Nintendo taking down let’s play videos back in the old days on YouTube – those videos were great free advertising for Pokemon! Mark handled it in a classy way by apologising and taking down the artwork for sale on his RedBubble. Reaction from fans was divided and I think it’s important to unpack this so we can dive into the issue and understand it.
Some fans were cheering on Dave and fully in support of him telling a fan artist to take down his artwork for sale. I really don’t get this yaaas queen attitude for everything your favourite does, even if they’re in the wrong. It’s okay to disagree! Some people were reasonable and posted supportive messages saying they bought his merch or would gladly buy Mark’s merch if The Kinks made a licensing deal with him – c’mon Dave, Give The People What They Want! But then there were these crazy overzealous stans that reminded me of the Apu from The Simpsons taking a bullet meme. Not too different from the Elon Musk fanboys.
I’m a huge fan of The Kinks, but even I couldn’t defend this cop behaviour. Some people came at me accusing me of not liking The Kinks. That’s the wildest accusation you can make about me. One person called me a supporter of piracy and plagiarism after I called him out for being a cop because he’s snitch tagging bands Mark drew and punching down at an artist. Hall monitor behaviour.
Don’t be like Randall from Recess. Nobody likes a snitch. The conversation was about original fan art, which is wildly different from pirating music or plagiarising art, as I’ll discuss later. Literally that one twitter meme that’s like “I like pancakes” and someone misinterprets that as “I hate waffles.” Like no, that’s two different sentences there, buddy! That twitter user reminded me so much of that South Park scene from the episode “Christian Rock Hard” where the police officer shows Kyle, Stan, and Kenny how Lars Ulrich, Britney Spears, and Master P have to go from a lavish lifestyle to a slightly less lavish lifestyle because people pirate their music.
I was the first comment on that original, now deleted, tweet by Dave that supported the fan artist, but also said that a collaboration would be a big opportunity for the two of them: “It’s nice fan art! I think it would be really cool if rock bands did licensing deals and collabs with artists to make fun and unique looking fan merch. Win-win for bands and the fan artists! I know it’s easier said than done, but it would be awesome.” That comment got a bunch of likes and a lot of other people expressed similar sentiments supporting the artist saying he didn’t have bad intentions and didn’t mean to hurt Dave or The Kinks. One person said that because of Mark’s artwork they got back into those bands and even saw a couple of them in concert – so in a way his artwork made the bands money, even if it was indirect. Some even criticised the cop-like behaviour of fans who were sending hate to a fan artist and being copyright bootlickers in the process.
One user called Dave out as being no different from Lars Ulrich or Bono, just another greedy, rich rock star punching down at the little guy. While I wouldn’t 100% agree with that assessment, I definitely think his initial reaction was very Lars Ulrich-like. This is stuff I’d expect from a bigger act like Taylor Swift, who actually did send cease and desist letters to Etsy sellers selling fan merch (to be fair to Taylor, I don’t know if she had anything to do with it or was it her legal team doing this without her knowledge), which funny enough, like The Kinks, is so contrary to her image of being so connected to the fans – one time, Taylor Swift gave a Canadian fan $5k towards their university tuition. Funny enough, Metallica got a DMCA takedown for performing their own music on Twitch! The irony of one of the most litigious bands getting a taste of their own medicine.
Dave later plugged The Kinks’ revamped merch store and it was then that it became clear to me he was starting this discussion because he had something to sell or promote. I had no idea The Kinks relaunched their merch store until this interaction happened. The move looks calculated to me, but that’s just me though.
I think he could have done that in a classier, more graceful way like saying something like “Hey, love the artwork, but this is unofficial and the sales of it don’t financially support the band. We’d appreciate it if you took it down for sale. We’ve relaunched our merch store with some brand new designs. Now you can finally get some official Kinks merch and support us again! Thanks!” People usually respond well to polite, reasonable requests from people they look up to.
Or even better: “Hey Mark! Love your artwork! The Kinks are relaunching a merch store and we’d love to work something out with you and sell your designs. I followed you so you can DM me. Let’s talk!” Or instead why didn’t he handle it privately instead of calling him out publicly and embarrassing him? I’ll share my husband’s advice: If you ever have a disagreement, always look like the most sane, reasonable person in the room.
Now the plot thickens. If you take a look at their merch store, you might notice that there’s a couple of Warhol parodies/homages in the designs, including one that is a Warhol style design of a Coke bottle with Lola written on it in the Coca-Cola font. Did The Kinks get permission from the Andy Warhol Foundation and Coca-Cola for this? What about when “Lola” came out in 1970? Did Ray Davies get permission from Coca-Cola to use their brand name in his song? I know he had to change it to “cherry cola” for the BBC because they had a policy against product placement, but that had nothing to do with Coca-Cola, right? If they didn’t, you know what they say about glass houses and stones. The question is at what point does something go from being a ripoff/plagiarism to being a parody/homage and fair use? Where is the line? See how ridiculous this gets?
Eventually though, Dave posted an olive branch of sorts to Mark after Mark profusely apologised multiple times. He said, “sent you a message about possibilities.” Will anything materialise? Will Mark’s cool designs one day be in The Kinks merch store? Only time will tell. I know if it were me, I wouldn’t have a good feeling going into the discussion when my idol embarrassed me and called me out on the carpet and now I have people snitch tagging bands I drew pictures of. I’d be nervous. Anyway, I hope something is worked out and both sides agree on a win-win solution.
I’ve followed Mark for a while now and his artwork of rock bands is very high quality and always so thoughtfully and respectfully created and he never claimed to be affiliated with the bands. I love all the retro comic book, cartoon, and pop art influences. Absolutely not plagiarism or a ripoff or anything, no more than classic rock rips off black blues and R&B musicians anyway. They’re great tributes to classic rock bands and it’s clear how much passion he has for the music. Art is something that’s hard to make a living from and it makes sense for artists who get a following online to monetise their work in some way so they can keep the lights on. I follow a lot of people who make classic rock inspired art and they will often have shops where they sell prints, posters, mugs, shirts, and other things with their drawings on it. Fair play to them and I support them, as they are friends and people I know! I know how hard they work at perfecting their craft. Now this is where the copyright debate starts.
Give The People What They Want: Fan Made Merch!
Fanart has always existed. Kids definitely drew pictures of The Beatles back in the 60s and I’m sure many fans sent their drawings to the band’s fan mail address. A lot of fans made their own band shirts and even recreated outfits that band members wore. I remember Ann and Nancy Wilson said in their autobiography that they made outfits that were identical to the ones The Beatles wore on tour and wore those outfits when they saw them in concert. You’d see this phenomenon a lot in the days of Rollermania. That was the whole point, The Bay City Rollers’ dress sense and image was supposed to be attainable and relatable. It’s harmless, healthy fun and it shows how much the fans get into the music and it’s an opportunity for them to be creative.
It’s because of the internet that fanart got a bigger platform and independent artists have the opportunity to sell their creations to a wider audience. Before the internet, you had to own your own printing equipment or pay someone to make shirts and stuff. It wasn’t as accessible as it is now. Nowadays there’s companies like RedBubble and Teespring that do print on demand merch, they take care of the logistics so there’s no need for you to pack and ship it, you don’t have to keep inventory in your house, and anyone can open up a merch store online and start selling their creations. Most people don’t make a lot of money, but it can be quite good beer money level passive income. I have a RedBubble shop that I don’t talk about very much (and have not updated in forever) but I’ve made a little money selling some of my travel photography there. Depending on what people buy you could make 20 cents to $5 for each item you sell, not life changing amounts of money, but it’s honest work.
More than likely Mark didn’t make boatloads of money from RedBubble sales. I don’t see how he’s stealing from The Kinks or any other band he’s drawn when The Kinks didn’t have a merch store for years there, and only now relaunched it and things are only available as a pre-order. He didn’t prevent The Kinks from opening a merch store. The fact that The Kinks didn’t have one for years there is their fault, not the fan artists’ fault. I’m sure there’s behind the scenes stuff that made it take a while but I don’t know about it taking years. The fan artists are keeping your legacy alive and keeping you relevant and your lights on by getting people into your music: streaming it, buying physical copies, and heck even buying the official merch. I know a lot of classic rock fans are all “in for a penny, in for a pound” when it comes to buying band shirts. Buy all the band shirts! Well, not me, I prefer to dress like the rock stars instead.
One Taylor Swift fan said it well when they said this during her 1989 era:
“Fans like to see themselves as part of the artist’s story, however small. They want to contribute and be creative and have fun. These free, loving, creative minds are being stopped by the very artists who have inspired them. Obviously an artist has a right to their art and people should respect that. But at the same time most people, like us, are trying to be respectful and contribute to the excitement that the artist brings into our lives. When that is taken away, it leaves us with a bitter taste in our mouths. It feels as though we don’t matter, that our ideas and thoughts and creations never belonged to us in the first place. No matter how hard we worked. And for other fans who make art, I’m afraid that this is going to be the future.”
Still though, fanart went nowhere even nearly a decade later. Like I said, I have friends and Instagram mutuals who have run shops selling prints and I would hate to see them have to shut down their small businesses. That’s someone’s livelihood right there. That’s how someone pays their bills. Imagine your whole business is gone and now you have to figure out how to pay the bills. And it’s even harder for someone who has only ever worked as an artist to find another job. We’re in an economic depression and a cost of living crisis. We need class solidarity now more than ever before. Fight the real enemy.
Copyright-happy takedowns of fanart puts a chilling effect on creativity. And once again where does this copyright stuff end? I get that Dave is against commercialised fan art, but I see supporters who are taking it even further and being against all fan art, calling it all plagiarism and insulting these hardworking artists. What about fans recording covers of songs and putting them up on YouTube? Certainly they didn’t get permission to cover it, but they are putting their own unique spin on the song. What about reaction videos? Fancams? Commentary videos and articles? If we can’t talk about classic rock, then it ceases to live on and that’s a real shame. It’s why I’m a big supporter of copyright reform and I would like to see things go into public domain way sooner so people can remix, remake, and mashup things to their heart’s content and we have more innovation. You don’t have to be a socialist to support the public domain. It’s also compatible with capitalism and its ideals of innovation and not resting on your laurels. Art is part of human history and after a certain time has elapsed, it should go into the public domain for all of us to enjoy. When you put art out there, it’s not just yours anymore. People are free to interpret it as they wish and sure, you should make money as the creator, but at some point it needs to go public domain for the greater good. Historically, copyrighted works went into the public domain after 30 years!
We’re all guilty of enjoying bootlegged content. Ever watch a movie (clip) on YouTube that wasn’t uploaded by an official channel? Ever listen to a song uploaded by some random account on YouTube? Ever used Napster or Limewire? Ever record your vinyls onto a cassette tape? Ever record a song off the radio? Ever digitise your vinyl records or other physical media? Ever make a mixtape for a friend? Ever share pictures of rock bands on social media that you didn’t take? Ever read scans of a magazine article about your favourite band on Tumblr or some other social media site (that wasn’t uploaded by the official account)? Ever shared or made a meme? Ever post a video of yourself dancing to a song pre-TikTok? Ever made a video montage of your favourite band? I know you didn’t get permission from the copyright owner! What about posting pictures of your album purchases? That album artwork is certainly copyrighted. What if you take pictures at a concert and post them on social media? Did the artist give permission to be photographed? Heck, what if you buy secondhand physical copies of records and CDs? What if I go to the library, check out a CD and rip it to my computer? The rockstar doesn’t get money from that. Is that piracy? Where does it end? Are we not allowed to post anything anymore? Just selfies and cat pictures? You open up a whole Pandora’s box when you become a copyright cop.
I’ve seen Ray and Dave champion small businesses on multiple occasions and denounce gentrification and big businesses taking over the high street. To me, Dave telling a fan artist to take down their fan art of him is hypocritical given his history of supporting small businesses and the little guy. On Dave’s Instagram, he will post pictures and tag the independent shops, cafes, and restaurants he visits when he goes out and about. Last month, he visited and tagged an Indian restaurant, a comic book store, and an independent bookstore. He also often goes to independent record stores and will sign things and use hashtags that support these small businesses. While Ray isn’t involved in this because he doesn’t do social media (smart guy!) and he doesn’t do interviews these days, he has said in an old interview with The Quietus:
“I haven’t found a political party that adequately expresses how I feel about the world. My dad was a working class socialist, but as a person … I just don’t want people in shops to have to sell their businesses, I don’t know what that makes me [politically].”
I had a friend who drew fan art of Dave and he shared it (her username is @olipeaksforever – she drew the one in the middle on the bottom with the thigh high boots)! He shared one of my mutuals’ recreations of his Death of a Clown outfit in Animal Crossing. He’s definitely not a hater of fan art and he enjoys memes sometimes. Heck, he shared a fan art parody of the Something Else cover to promote a podcast appearance (The podcast has a Patreon, ergo makes money, so is this not commercial by definition?), he shared a fan made album cover of a Kinks covers tribute album (a product for sale, is that not commercial? Did they get a licence for that?), and he shared a Kinks twist on the Bernie Sanders mittens meme (are memes copyright violations?). I just think the old school mentality got the best of him in this situation.
I know that The Kinks were screwed over like a lot of rock bands. Ray and Dave wrote a whole concept album about it called Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, all based on a true story of legal battles the band dealt with in the late 60s. Great album by the way, I have it on vinyl. Two of the band members, Pete Quaife and John Dalton, had to go back to day jobs after leaving The Kinks. An inconvenient truth about a band that had a history of espousing pro-working class messages in their music. Unless you’re a Davies brother, you had nothing to show for it. The sad part is while yes, the band were ripped off by exploitative record deals, the ripoff kept getting passed down to the other band members, talk about a Moneygoround. No one else had songwriting credits, so what royalties do they get? I don’t see anyone but Ray, Dave, and Mick involved in 60th anniversary promo stuff. Did other members decline to participate by choice? In the case of Pete, what about his family? Were the other members ignored? There’s a reason the Kast Off Kinks are a thing and Mick Avory still performs even though he’s pushing 80. The other members besides Ray and Dave deserve(d) better and deserve more recognition and credit. Not to be a gatekeeper, but true fans show appreciation for all band members.
Some fans claimed that Dave isn’t rich, but he’s certainly not hurting for money if he’s going back and forth across the Atlantic a couple times a year – going overseas isn’t something truly broke people do. He hasn’t toured since the pandemic – he seems to make enough to live off of without playing tour dates. He’s not Lester Chambers (from The Chambers Brothers), who ended up homeless and lived below the poverty line, or Denny Laine (former member of The Moody Blues and Wings), who is in a ridiculous amount of debt because of America’s predatory for-profit healthcare system. Paul McCartney, where are you? Step up and help your former bandmate! Squash whatever beef you had, and do the right thing. Heck, Dick Dale had to keep performing concerts up until the end of his life (he even had concerts he was supposed to play, but he died before those scheduled tour dates) even though he was really sick because he had a lot of medical expenses. To be fair, rock stars often deal with back taxes and I don’t know the ins and outs of some stranger’s finances.
If we had to cancel everything that was derivative or inspired by something, we’d have nothing left. Everything takes inspiration from something. If we can’t talk about the music we love or make fanart of it or play covers, then we have no fan community and the music dies.
Ch-Ch-Changes
I think the best solution is that we need to adapt and change with the times and embrace the changes. You can’t be living in the past, like Jethro Tull once sang. Fanart is going nowhere. Bands should collaborate with fan artists to create better looking band merch. A lot of band shirts and merch looks generic and uninspired – soulless, and usually overpriced for what it is. I might as well DIY it at home – the real hippie and rock ‘n’ roll way. And that’s in general, I’m not just talking about The Kinks. Most fan made art is better looking than the band’s official merch.
What if we could have the bands work with the artists? Like I said, it’s a W for everyone: Bands get more sales because the merch looks way more appealing, Artists get a platform and an opportunity to get compensated and recognised for doing what they love (hopefully at a fair rate!), and fans get really cool looking merch and get to support both the bands and the artists they love. If you’re gonna pay 25 quid for a shirt, it might as well be a really creative, thoughtfully designed shirt – something you’ll enjoy wearing and get compliments on.
Like Buddy Holly sang… it’s so easy. Well… maybe on the surface, but I’m not going to get into the ins and outs of contracts and legal stuff that goes on behind the scenes in these collaborations because I don’t know anything about that. Surely bands are hesitant to do this because negotiations are hard and it’s a lot of work, but classic rock bands have teams that can look after this and hire on some talented artists.
It’s so yesterday to see other artists and creatives as competition. We are in an era of collaboration and it can work in everyone’s favour if done right. I don’t see other classic rock bloggers or content creators as competition, I see them as colleagues. This isn’t the 60s anymore. Other artists aren’t the enemy. Pick your battles.
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