Found a shirt with a print of the exact fan-art illustration of Uruha from the GazettE by Kyunai on deviant art. The shirt can be found on this link.

Original photoshoto to illustrated version:

New look’s version:

This spring in Toronto, Hip Hop Karaoke put together this T-shirt design for their 3rd anniversary show with Chali 2na, printed less than a hundred shirts and that was that. This past weekend at Rock the Bells (kind of a hip hop woodstock) in New York City someone noticed our design, ripped and on sale at a merch booth! It’s a blatant bad live trace (why’d they leave the “3″ in there?) with some less than classy edits.

I found this piece in a local designer’s store located in Pereira, Colombia called TrendyLoft but the stores is not who violates the intelectual property but CaosBags the brand who make the bags, that bag company has no website.

Here is the original piece from Mais2

Here are the pics of CaosBags’ piece that even removed the artist name of the artwork.

Actual 1980s dress, from Dorothea’s Closet Vintage website

And the “design” by Tina O on her website, WannaWearByTinaO.com! Photo stolen from Dorothea’s Closet, item not purchased by said “designer” but purported to be her own design and being sold as such.

Here is some fairly shameless plagiarism from Australia. I only know about it because they contacted me saying they love my work and would like me to design them a new logo!

I designed this spread for SummerWinter Magazine, a mag that I am art director of in Australia, it was also up on the SummerWinter website for quite some time. They are a fashion label and they’ve used practically the same design for their logo

www.strummer.com.au

Sure, they’ve changed it from ‘Summer’ to ‘Strummer’ but it’s still basically the same design. I don’t even think it’s a good choice for a logo, I designed it to be almost illegible!

I’m not really that bothered, it’s not my best work and I did it about 4 years ago. I haven’t replied to them yet, what do you guys think I should say? I feel like I should send them an invoice for their first logo along with the quote for the re-brand.

Stolen – noico                                   Orginal – Mathiole in threadless

Noico aka ocion pl “gallery”:

http://ocionpl.daportfolio.com/gallery/331567#18

http://www.myspace.com/noicopl/photos/19816929

Orginal!

Use Your Brain by Matheus Lopes Castro in threadless

http://www.threadless.com/product/2060/Use_Your_Brain

I designed this qipao styled dress for Fan+Friend online shop’s design contest 2009. The idea of the contest is to design a lolita/aristocrat styled outfit and the winning outfit will be made as an actual piece to be sold at the F+F online store. I happened to win with this design:

The original design by Charlotta Tiuri (noke89):

This is the dress Fan+Friend made and it is now sold at their online store.

The original piece by Fan+Friend:

About one year later somebody noticed me in Deviantart, that they have seen something, that seems to be a rip off of my design. I got a link to chicstar.com and I found this:

The Rip Off by Daniela Valentini and chicstar:

Daniela Valentini had won a contest with this design in chicstar and the chicstar have now made the dress and they are also selling it on their site. I reported this in their site, but they refused to remove it.

The similarities:

I think anyone can tell the similarities between the designs and I think this “designer” have seen the dress that is sold on F+F site and ripped off the idea from it. The color options are exactly the same, the idea of the print is exactly the same (for me it doesn’t matter if it’s birds & flowers or just flowers) and the basic shape and the ruffles in the bottom are exactly the same.

The differences:

Fan+Friend did some changes to my original design as well. The ruffles on the back side, the corset lacing in the back and they also changed the print a little bit. Still it is my design. Daniela Valentini also did minimal changes, she added the buttons on the front and there are no ruffles on the back (just like in my original design) while in F+F version there are. I don’t think these little details really matter, the overview is just the same.

What is the design originally about:

The “designer” seemed to know nothing about the inspiration of this dress since she named the piece  ”Japan Inspired Lolita Dress” . As the original designer of this dress I know it is China inspired dress that’s got influence form the traditional Chinese dress qipao. The style is naturally lolita style, since the original design contest was a about lolita fashion. And lolita style comes from Japan so every lolita dress is basically  Japan inspired. The style of this dress in fact is qi-lolita (qipao+lolita). If you don’t know this much about these styles and you haven’t seen the F+F dress that I designed, then it is quite a coincidence that you have been able to pull out exact the same style of design.

*Update*

I’ve been trying to talk to the company that manufactured the t-shirt and so far they seem to have no intention to resolve this matter. All I got are just “We’ll handle this immediately” and “We’ll contact you again soon.” If things stay this way I think I’m gonna have to take this to court. Wish me luck.

———-

Hello everyone. My name is Rachmat Lianda and I’m a 23 year old photographer/designer living in Jakarta, Indonesia. I went to Kelapa Gading 3 Mall in Jakarta yesterday and serendipitically found out myself that Factor Alternative Outfitters have ripped my typography work here:

and made this silly parody here:

which design is too hilarious i’m not even laughing.

I asked the store clerk about the t-shirt and she said it’s a new collection which was launched a week ago. I bought the shirt (and tried real hard not to bite the store clerk’s head off, I realized it’s not really her fault) as a proof. I knew from the store clerk that the brand has several branches in Jakarta, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, and Malang (all in Indonesia) so maybe the t-shirt can be found in there too. Took a better picture of the t-shirt, overlaid it with the work, and look what I have here:

I went to the website, www.factor-outfitters.com, but apparently it’s inactive. I checked the cached page and found out that it also has branches in Singapore: Junction 8, S.C and White Sand S.C.  If you live in Singapore maybe you could help me check? It’ll be very appreciated.

I found the office address, which is located here in Jakarta too, so I guess I’ll send them a Cease & Desist Letter today. There’s also a facebook page so I’ll a put the C& D Letter on a note and tag them or something. Will update later, hopefully with good news. Wish me luck.

Junk Food claimed their designers were searching for inspiration for a music series line of t-shirts on the internet and came across my turntable design in a blog. I had an attorney write a Cease & Desist letter to Junk Food. I didn’t have enough money to take them to court so they wrote a letter of apology and we settled on a payment.

My design:

Brooke's Turntable design

Junk Food’s version on a t-shirt:

Junk Food's version of my turntable

I was fortunate enough to find the t-shirt in a local boutique called Chrome in Lubbock, TX. I actually found it once more in Forever 21 in the Lubbock Mall. A friend found a girl’s version of the tee in Heritage 1981.

My name is Rockie Nolan. I am a nineteen year old photographer living in the United States.

I was recently informed by one of my followers on deviantART who noticed the large clothing company RESERVED (based in Poland) selling a t-shirt with my image printed on it.

found at a location in Poland

The image is a self-portrait I took this time about a year ago (yes, I am a girl… I just have a boy’s name)

Original self-portrait by Rockie Nolan

I’m not sure what I find more offensive, the fact that they blatantly took my image without my permission or the hideous bedazzling they have added to an already idiotic phrase.

Curiously enough, they do not have the shirt in question listed on the site despite the fact that multiple people have found the shirt in their local stores. Someone else pointed out that another shirt from Reserved features stolen illustrations as well. I had to email the company that owns the company because the Reserved website is too flashy and their contact box does not yet work, but I have not yet heard back from them.

AN UPDATE:
Yesterday (july 14th) I received an email from the company’s attorney.

“We appreciate the value of our own IP rights, and respect IP rights of the other creators. Unfortunately one of our contractor must have taken the shortcut and used your work as its own. Please accept our apologies for it, and be assured that it happened without LPP’s knowledge and acceptance. In return for the inconvience occured to you, we would like to offer you cooperation, and license some of your work found at devianart. Enclosed please find photos that we are interested in using as  printed designs. We may pay you $150 per each, which is regular price we pay for licensing such photos. ”

So basically, instead of taking care of the theft they’d rather rectify the situation by using more of my pictures in the future? While that is flattering, that in no way covers the fact that they stole my image.

For those who commented on me being “a teenager looking for a big payout” that is not the case. I am an artist and I am only seeking a rightful compensation for the illegal production of my work. I am not asking for anything outrageous, only compensation and to teach these companies that they must take caution with copyright.

I will update this when I hear from them again.
Thanks for your support! It is because of this site that they even contacted me in the first place!