As we said in our statement, it is an honor to be a signatory on today’s letter to President Obama from the broader creative IP community. It is fantastic to be associated with so many defenders of creators’ rights, and it is fantastic to be able to promote creators’ rights without lecturing, cajoling, or berating. Choosing to be patronizing and condescending doesn’t serve one well in the post-partisan world President Obama is endeavoring to create.

One signatory told me, “What I like about this letter is that we aren’t so arrogant as to tell the President how to do his job.”

Spend a moment and look at the signatories. Unions from the audiovisual, music and visual arts industries. Member organizations of individual creators totaling thousands upon thousands of songwriters, photographers, illustrators and filmmakers. Charitable foundations representing the political spectrum. Corporations large and small employing hard-working Americans in large numbers. Trade associations that, when their individual members are combined, represent an incredible swath of the U.S. economy and millions of jobs.

This coalition came together quickly, in response to an April 2 letter to President Obama decrying some of his appointments, informing him of how he had repeatedly erred, and instructing him on how he should behave in the future.

While it would seem to most observers that the letter would not be well regarded or seriously considered, it’s never wise to leave arguments unanswered. So I was happy to work with my members and throw the Copyright Alliance in with this larger coalition.

The Obama Administration has now received confirmation of what it already knew, that there are millions of Americans passionate in their support of creators’ rights and their livelihoods that stem from those rights. This coalition formed quickly, but I suspect the connections will remain, and our numbers will be even larger when the the need arises to act collectively again.

It’s a good day to be a creator.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 10:05 am by Patrick Ross and is filed under Obama, copyright law, copyright opponents, creators, economy, property rights. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.