ASMP

April 2000 – ASMP President Gene Mopsik invites the leaders of APA, EP, NPPA and PPA to a proposed meeting. The purpose is to explore finding common ground to work together for the good of photographers.
June 2000 –The announced meeting takes place under ASMP's auspices. The organizations agree that a coalition would be beneficial and agree to meet in November. The group decides on the working name of "Photofocus." EP offers to organize the November meeting.
November 2000 – The organizations meet at Photo East. Coalition of Visual Artists is selected as the group's name. EP's representative Michael Grecco starts pressing to hire a lobbyist, despite the absence of any plan or specific issue on which for which a lobbyist might be beneficial, saying "I am looking for a commitment to go forward and make a plan, any plan, for a lobbyist." He offers to look into possible lobbyists and report his findings to the other members. Non-photographic organizations are added to the coalition. At this point, the CVA consists of APA (Advertising Photographers of America), ASMP, EP (Editorial Photographers), GAG (Graphic Artists Guild), IPA (Illustrator's Partnership of America), NPPA (National Press Photographers Association) and PPA (Professional Photographers of America). EP's representatives create an e-mail list for CVA at Yahoo and create a website within the EP domain. That website opens with the statement that "The Coalition of Visual Artists is (sic) group of industry leaders working together with a hired lobbyist to create change." That language was never approved by the members of CVA and is factually untrue. Despite ASMP's protests, that language has never been removed or corrected.
December 2000 – Grecco uses the CVA list to attack ASMP and MIRA in connection with CCC (Copyright Clearance Center).
January 2001 - EP’s representative Seth Resnick unilaterally adds vendor corporations, such as Kodak and Canon, to the private e-mail list of the CVA. ASMP protests the presence of vendors on the list because of their potential conflicts of interest with photographers and other creators and because of potential conflicts arising from the personal business relationships between them and at least two representatives of CVA member organizations. Later, Kodak and Canon voluntarily withdraw from the list. Several organizations suggest three or four possible lobbyists. The Coalition never receives any report that they are contacted or interviewed. The member organizations unanimously approve a mission statement for CVA that says nothing about a lobbyist.
June 2001 – CVA representatives meet at Photo West. Also present is a lobbyist selected and invited by EP representatives. The lobbyist has no plan or prepared presentation, and expresses his belief that an anti-trust exemption might be obtainable for freelance creators in two years. He quotes a retainer fee of $100,000 per year.
June to November 2001 – ASMP, PPA and GAG do independent assessments of probability of success of lobbying for antitrust exemption. All come to the same conclusion that it is extremely unlikely to succeed and virtually certain to be unobtainable within a two year time line. ASMP conveys its findings to CVA members. ASMP requests a detailed proposal from Grecco's lobbyist as to how he would proceed. It is never provided.
November 2001 – CVA representatives meet at Photo East. There is no discussion of the likelihood of success of lobbying for an anti-trust exemption. Instead, EP proposes a different lobbying effort, aimed at the Copyright Act. ASMP and other organizations agree to take this proposal, like the earlier one, to their respective boards for consideration. ASMP's board considers it at its semi-annual meeting. Based on information from ASMP staff, GAG and PPA, ASMP's board concludes that a lobbyist would not be effective at this time and for the proposed projects. The proposed projects are also not consistent with ASMP's current strategic plan. ASMP communicates its position and the reasons for it to CVA (see the companion post for ASMP's analysis). PPA also notifies CVA that it will not support the proposed lobbying efforts at this time. Only EP and APA appear to support the proposed lobbying activities.
February 8, 2002 – Grecco asks whether ASMP (and only ASMP) will support the CVA lobbying effort by allowing access to ASMP's membership by a lobbyist or by allowing access to ASMP's membership for fund-raising efforts. ASMP responds that the question requires board action and will be considered by the Executive Board two weeks later.
February 18, 2002 – ASMP members who are also EP members or with close ties to EP start posting questions about ASMP's position on ASMP's Members Only Forum, starting the various threads relating to ASMP and CVA. At about this time, Grecco urges EP members who are ASMP members to lobby ASMP's board to change its position, thereby injecting EP into ASMP's internal, policy-making processes.
February 20, 2002 – ASMP President Dave Harp posts a detailed explanation of ASMP's position on the Members Only Forum.
February 22, 2002 – Grecco, without authorization or knowledge of ASMP, obtains a copy of Harp's Members Only post and sends it to the CVA list. He precedes it by saying that Harp "neglected to send (this) to the CVA." In fact, the information in the post had already been provided to the CVA, and there was no "neglect" involved, since Harp's response was to a series of postings on the ASMP list, not the CVA list.
February 23, 2002 – Grecco posts on the EP list his response to Harp's February 20 post, but does not provide Harp's post or other background to the EP list members.
February 26, 2002 – PPA resigns from CVA, noting that the proposed lobbying efforts are not consistent with its own plans and concern over the treatment that ASMP received for not supporting EP's proposed lobbying efforts, which was the same position as PPA's and other organizations within CVA.

David Harp
President, ASMP

CVA - a chronology of its formation and evolution