Why? Every time you hear "Satisfaction" on the radio Mick Jagger makes more money. That's not because he's so smart, but because years ago, others were. A century ago, songwriters had to produce a steady stream of songs to make a living. They sold their works outright to sheet music publishers, then watched in frustration as middlemen got rich from their hits. Broadway composers also had no way to monitor the use of secondary rights to their music. Then came the phonograph and the radio, and what had once been a secondary market for songs became a new primary market. So in 1914, a few composers and music publishers banded together to form ASCAP (The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). In 1940, others formed Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). Today these collective rights organizations are dominant market forces, licensing music and collecting and distributing royalties for the benefit of their members. The Internet, like the phonograph and radio of the past, arrives with great promise for illustrators. The information revolution offers us a new opportunity to better serve our existing customers and to develop new secondary markets for our works. But like the technological revolutions of the past, the Internet also arrives with great perils for illustrators. Commercial stock houses are harnessing these technologies to their own advantage, leaving artists out in the cold. The contemporary stock and clip art business is designed by middlemen for their own profit. Stock houses sell art at steeply discounted prices, eroding our primary markets. Following the easiest and cheapest business model, these companies are good at marketing art but lack the talent to produce it. By contrast, artists have the talent to produce art but to date lack a competitive business model for the information age. To respond to these fundamental changes, many artists believe that the time is right to organize a trade association of our own.