There is perhaps something to be said for official state symbols, flags or otherwise, following a different compensation and copyright model than other design works, and of course for the artists who design them to have the right to say no to that status.
Since I can’t find anything from Thomas himself speaking about this petition, I can only guess his position. My guess is that he contracted with WAM because they could distribute it globally and agreed to pay him for each usage rather than demanding he merely take a lump sum and they keep all the profit if it was successful, as it clearly turned out to be. Given the history of companies fucking over artists by paying them the minimum possible and then reaping maximum profits from their work, I can entirely see why Thomas agreed to a deal that didn’t do that.
The right thing here, IMHO, is for WAM to offer to renegotiate a non-exclusive commercial license with Thomas. Legally they could hold him to the original terms of the contract, but morally they should not, nor would it be good business given the negative impact to their public relations.
Reading the Supporter Comments on the Change.org petition, it’s pretty obvious the vast majority of the people signing the petition don’t know the copyright is owned by the aboriginal artist who designed it or that he had to fight a legal battle to assert it. They’re just outraged that a non-aboriginal company is making money off aboriginal culture. And I can’t exactly blame them. If I hadn’t dug deeper, I’d have taken Cory’s position at face value, and Cory appears to have taken Spark Health’s position at face value.
And that’s where I think Spark Health is strategically omitting facts - in particular who owns the copyright and the fact that they themselves are a for-profit business seeking a commercial license - that aren’t beneficial to their own otherwise reasonable goal of getting a commercial license.
I personally don’t care if WAM gets dragged through the mud for their profiteering, but I don’t like that Thomas’s rights as an aboriginal artist are simply being left out for the sake of Spark Health’s convenience.
