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.

There’s a store I walk past every morning on Cuba St (Wellington, NZ). They call themselves “Kolektiv Design Studio” and they sell t-shirts. There’s always a couple of things I recognize in the window, but they’re usually just Banksy stuff and he’s used to being ripped off so I never bothered thinking about it too much.

However earlier this week I noticed a t-shirt in the window with a graphic I recognized from Esty, I don’t remember the seller’s handle but it’s this Gangster Snow White MacBook sticker.

I went to their website, that shirt isn’t there but a lot of stolen designs are, and no where does it mention any affiliation with any of the designers. They seem to claim credit for everything they sell in their about us;

“Thought provoked and inspired by so many pioneering individuals, we use the t-shirt to portray ideas and concepts relating to environmental, political, spiritual and humorous matters to help stimulate the mind and get you thinking outside the box. We hope you like what we have to offer and choose to support this movement and wear our designs, and by doing so you help spread the love, provoking others to use inertia and push against the gravity of life’s struggles, trials and tribulations.”

They do have a page for submitting ideas but it says they will “profile” 3rd party designers with their work and I don’t see any of that, so it doesn’t look like people are selling them the stolen ideas unless they’re not crediting them for that either.

Compare a few (Kolektiv on the left with the koru backgrounds)

From ObeyThePurebreed.com

Bansky

From a book of the same name

myntra.com

After some google fu I found a threadless thread from 2008 and apparently they’ve been doing this for a while, mostly stealing Threadless designs. Even when there was an actual Threadless retailer down the street.

I also found a news article about an unrelated protect on the store, they are based in Auckland and one of the owners is named Jade Lynn.

This really disappointments me since as a country we’re really proud of our artists and designers for defining us as a creative culture. It’s almost like they think this is ok since we’re a small country and it’s very unlikely anything they steal will ever make it back to the original artist.

Hot Topic has apparently discovered street art. However, sadly for Hot Topic, one of the artists is Banksy and the designs don’t even appear to have been redone.

D*Face Original “Pop Tart”

http://www.dface.co.uk/vault_item.php?image_id=35&vault_id=1&itemNo=6

Hot Topic Tee “ZOMBIE PIN UP TEE”

http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Apparel/TShirts/Zombie-Pin-Up-Tee-Plus-Size-227898.jsp

Banksy original “Gansta Rat”  2004:

http://www.originalprints.com/printview.php?dx=3&page=1&id=21655&sid=f6a191aafe400ff202d724cd44d70e21

Hot Topic RAT BOOM BOX T-SHIRT

http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Apparel/TShirts/FashionTees/Rat-Boom-Box-TShirt-253566.jsp

Banksy “Bomb Hugger”

http://www.guyhepner.com/pieces/banksy-prints-bomb-hugger

Hot Topic BOMB HUG T-SHIRT

http://www.hottopic.com/hottopic/Apparel/TShirts/FashionTees/Bomb-Hug-TShirt-263209.jsp

Clothing store Susan (as in “this goes with that”) has wheeled the old “as long as we change 30%” chestnut.

Their new range of sleepwear was spotted in their stores by a “concerned citizen”…armed with a camera phone and a change room, she has provided evidence…also has reportedly secured examples via a promo voucher.  It is also she that had direct contact with susan and was given the said “as long as we change 30%” line.  So they are not denying the rip

The ripped designs prominently feature the rats, in a non to sublte rip, obviously using Banksy’s as a source image and fiddling with it a bit.

The items do not appear on their online catalog for some reason??? 

I am sure you have seen them enough to recognise them.

Check this out;

This is a friend of mines street art which he gave me permission to turn into a t-shirt, I am the only person anywhere that has permission to use his concept.

The original design, featured all over the net and in Street Art Books.;

and my t-shirts;

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=29492749

http://www.killingpeopleisrude.com/

And here is this rip off we found, not exact rip but he obviously got the idea from my friends work, I actually like the design, though for mine I stayed true to the original work. cafepress is a pain to get stuff pulled down…

A couple of years ago I was asked to write and illustrate a tongue-in-cheek Popular Science/Mechanics-style book on how to build bongs for San Francisco based publisher, Chronicle Books. I’m no authority on the subject. Far from it, actually. They approached me with the idea because I had done technical illustrations for them before (mostly knitting and crocheting), and I can build just about anything. The book is called, Build this Bong.

The book had been out about two years when I thought I’d do an internet search to see how it was doing. Imagine my surprise when I noticed that in amongst the thumbnails of the book’s cover were images of a black t-shirt with illustrations from the book all over it!

The company that made the shirt is called Upper Playground. Ironically, I live just three blocks from their original store in San Francisco. It even says I’m an SF based artist in the back of the book. They made no attempt to get permission, however, from either myself or the publisher.

Upper Playground is an SF based clothing company, which also operates art galleries that show work from artists that are featured on the shirts they sell. They cater to the hip-hop/skater/graffiti art/420/urban-hipster community. The owner/founder, Matt Revelli, likes to pay lip service to supporting artists whenever he is interviewed. In one interview appearing on SFGate.com, he said, “We’re selling the whole idea of this creative lifestyle and supporting creative people and having their ideas and concepts come to life in a different form.”  My work certainly came to life in a different form.

Upper Playground’s revenues for 2007 were reported to be $10 million. In another interview, Matt Revelli was asked about his company’s five year plan. His answer, ” In five years, we’ll be a $25 million to $30 million company. We’re working on saving the music industry. That’s what makes America great, if we don’t find a way to compensate artists, it’s not going to be an innovator of that industry anymore.” He could have easily compensated me for my art, but simply chose not to.

Every drawing that appears on the shirt was lifted directly from the book. All they did was paste a portion of their walrus logo over the image in the center.

This is the shirt sold by Upper Playground. The design is credited to Denis Kennedy

This is a detail of the shirt from the website of an online retailer in Korea.

The image used on the upper left side of the shirt as it appears in the book.

The image used in the center of the left hand side of the shirt as it appears in the book.

The image used on the lower left hand side of the shirt as it appears in the book.

“I scour used bookstores for inspiration and ideas…I come up with ideas or concepts and have our designers or freelance people that I work with execute the concept.” Matt Revelli

Sam Flores is a fairly well established artist in the modern/street art scene, often appearing in mags like Juxtapoz.  Being a fairly big name in the art world, it came as quite a shock when it was pointed out that one of his most recent limited edition prints (advertised here: http://omgposters.com/2009/07/23/dragon-tree-art-print-by-sam-flores/, noted for plagiarism in the comments) appears to be almost entirely lifted from a painting by comic and book illustrator Jon Foster.

Jon Foster's Dragon and Herdsman, 2006

Sam Flores' Dragon Tree, 2009

And just in case those aren’t clear enough, an animated overlay for comparison.

Animated Gif Overlay

I never expect someone so established and well known as Sam Flores has become to resort to such obvious copying, and it’s a little more surprising to use someone like Jon Foster, who is a very big name in the illustration world right now.  So far, Jon has been trying to make contact and Sam has yet to comment or respond to any of this.

I’m a big fan of Radiohead and recently saw one of their latest music videos which reminded me of a video I saw for Los Campesinos!  At first look, the similarities are not so glaring because the animated techniques used in the videos are different, but upon closer examination, I had to say hmmmm.  Below is a summary of my findings.  (I want to clearly state here that I am NOT questioning Radiohead’s artistic integrity in any way, as they merely chose the winners of the contest based on the ideas pitched to them by the contestants).

Radiohead’s music video by Clement Picon for the track “Reckoner” from their latest album “In Rainbows” became the official vid for the track after it was chosen as one of the four grand prize winners in an animated music video contest held in 2008. The video has the same concept as the music vid for Los Campesinos!, “You! Me! Dancing!” by director/animator Monkmus, released in spring 2007. Looking past the difference in the format and techniques used, and apart from the concept being the same (trees first grow on barren land, houses are built, followed by cities, then everything is destroyed, then there is regrowth, etc.), there are shots in Picon’s video that are exactly the same as in Monkmus’ video, including the closing shot – see diagram below. All this combined make it tough to dismiss it as mere coincidence.

YOUTUBE: You! Me! Dancing!
YOUTUBE: Reckoner

When I was in L.A., I bought the really cool piece below that I was told was painted by “a well-known local artist named G.M. Bis.”

Recently, a friend of mine came over to my house, pointed at the painting and said, “That’s a Banksy!” Sure enough, here’s the original from Banksy’s website:

I decided to try to find more information about G.M. Bis, but the Internet yielded no clues. For such a “well-known” artist, why isn’t there any information available about him/her online? In fact, the only mentions I could find of G.M. Bis are on the website of the store from which I purchased the painting (along with a few other Banksy ripoffs). It’s all very suspicious, to say the least, and I’m starting to suspect that G.M. Bis may actually be the owner of the store (or a friend of relative of the owner). That’s pure speculation, of course, but like I said, it’s pretty suspicious.

I love Banksy’s work, so it’s no wonder I was attracted to the piece, but I had I known at the time that it’s a ripoff, I wouldn’t have bought it (in fact, I probably would have called out the owner right there in the store).

what can i say? it’s all there. a classic rip-off case. we are almost getting comfortable with underground club flayers designed by bunch of Banksies . What makes this case worse – this theater show is supported by art funds, soros, EU comunity, Danish culture institute, banks. All their logos are there except there is nothing mentioned about Banksy.