DUFFY FIGHTS FOR HIS ORIGINALS

Editoonist Brian Duffy, who, after 25 years at the Des Moines Register, was unceremoniously dumped by the paper in December 2008, might lose more than his job: the Register has refused to let him have the original art for his cartoons. The paper wants to donate them to the University of Iowa, which, according to a report at kcci.com, plans to preserve more than 100 years of editorial cartoons in the state of. The irony isn’t lost on Duffy: "The editor felt that I wasn't important enough, or my work wasn't important enough, to keep me at the newspaper, yet she wants to keep my legacy alive by donating all of my work to the University of Iowa.”

Duffy, while maintaining that a cartoonist’s work has historically been regarded as the cartoonist’s property, cites a legal-sounding precedent in his case: a book of his cartoons published by the newspaper carries the notice “copyright Brian Duffy and the Des Moines Register, not just the Des Moines Register," said Duffy. "I have no problem donating a large body of work to the University of Iowa. In fact, I'd love to do that." But he wants to do it on his terms not on behalf of the newspaper that shooed him out the door.

Comments

[mickey]

I had this happen to me years ago..i just showed up at the newspaper office when a clerk was there...and asked if i could take my drawings to be photographed for my records. Promising the clerk that i would bring them back that very day... well i never did.. I think this is awful.. artists own the originals.. .