

While the benefits of giving all your art away for free on Tumblr and deviantART are well known, you still shouldn’t give it away for free to an entity that is otherwise profiting, says artist Mike Hawthorne in one of those occasional reminders that creative folks are the lowest on the food chain:

Please bear in mind that a non-profit does NOT mean no one is making money. When people write up business plans for an actual non-profit company they include plans for people’s salaries, costs of services, etc. No one would fund a non-profit that did not plan for paying salaries to people working at the company. So people running a non-profit get paid. IF they want to hire an illustrator, they should pay him/her too. Maybe not top rates, but they should offer something other than dreams of potential future gigs.

Let me ask you something. Let’s say one of this company’s toilets clogged and they were thinking of “hiring” a plumber. Let’s say they called a plumber and asked him or her to fix this toilet for free then if the plumber did a good job he or she could fix they’re pipes in the future should the need arise. How many plumbers do you think would be taking that job?