The Mystery of the Purloined Embroidery Art
ATTORNEYSCOTT COMMENTARY:
When you post something on the internet, you never know where it might turn up. In the below case, an artist's original embroidery design was apparently borrowed for the cover art on a book entitled, appropriately, "The Long Stitch Good Night: An Embroidery Mystery." The embroidery piece was apparently reproduced in graphic art form, but this, still would violate the original artist's exclusive rights to create derivative works from her original embroidery piece. See 17 U.S.C. 106 (2).
Maybe the "embroidery mystery" is how this usage made its way through Penguin's legal clearance process?
- Scott A. Burroughs, Esq. ( [email protected] )
***
Dear YTWWN:
I am an artist, designer and owner of a small business called SeptemberHouse. My business focuses mostly on needlecraft, specifically embroidery. I design and sell embroidery patterns and recently found out that one of them showed up on the cover of a mass market paperback without my permission.
The pattern was one that I had posted on my blog as a free promotional pattern. Pattern designers often do this to generate views as well as interest and buzz about their work. I always clearly indicate that they are for personal use and copyrighted. This particular pattern is called "She Scatters Shamrocks" and was released in February 2010 just before St. Patrick's Day.
A few months ago, a reader who is familiar with this pattern contacted me to tell me that she saw it on a book cover and wanted to let me know because she wasn't sure it was supposed to be there. I'm so glad she did this because it was NOT supposed to be there and had she not told me, I would have never known. The book is called "The Long Stitch Good Night" and is written by Amanda Lee a.k.a Gayle Trent published by Penguin/Signet books. It is part of a series of mystery books with a needlework theme. This particular one also had an Irish theme.
- Book cover containing artwork stolen from embroidery pattern designer
My embroidery pattern appears in the lower right side of the image. It's small but it is definitely there. I was never contacted by the publisher or illustrator, asked permission to use the image or given any credit or compensation.
I have distributed a number of DMCA notifications and the image has been removed from some sites. I am still waiting to receive responses on others. At this point I am still deciding on what other action to take.
I also wrote recently wrote a post about this situation on my blog, so september.
A Crooked Designer at Hook or By Crook?
ATTORNEYSCOTT COMMENTARY:
One of the exclusive rights of a copyright holder is the right to create derivative works from the copyright holder's copyrighted property. In other words, if you create something, you have the exclusive right to create new works that employ that work, subject to a few exceptions. Below we have a report that Hook or by Crook has done gone and usurped Adam Jackson's right to create derivative works, and has knocked off his work. The evidence, for your viewing pleasure, is below.
***
DEAR YTWWN:
So I stumbled across this guy through a mutual friend on facebook and then noticed something slightly familiar about "his" work, I've been a huge fan of Adam Jackson for years so would know his work when I see it, this is why I was amazed to see UK based "illustrator" Spencer "Hook or by Crook" Douglas claiming that the t-shirts he sell's via the HOCBC website are "original and unique".... hmmm..... anyway, I thought "Well somebody is bound to find out soon enough..." Then a few weeks later via Instagram I saw some work by OG Able which looked familiar... jumped on facebook and as I thought a Hook or by Crook "original" was staring me in the face on the "fan" page... wow, this guy is a dick! So here we are, a blog to name and shame all the rip off people around the globe, just hit me up if you have any similar stories of people who deserve to be outed!
See the examples below, considering they look to have been traced, all the originals have way more detail and better penmanship with shading and/or color that puts the shitty HOBC stuff to shame!
If you want to see or buy REAL ORIGINALS where I can only assume the quality of the garments and prints will beat the terrible Hook or by Crook stuff by a mile then check out the following links and support real artists creating real work.
http://adamants.wordpress.com/
Brandon Day/Invocation
This post originally appeared on Fuck You Ripper
Hey guys. This is the first post on FYR and boy do we have a doozy right out of the gate. Meet Brandon Day. Brandon is a "graphic designer" from Kentucky who owns and operates a clothing company called Invocation.
Brandon's body count includes tracing artwork, stealing entire designs, and even stealing code from competitor's websites.
It should be noted that it would be hard to find any remaining evidence against Brandon because once he knew the art community was on to him, he dumped everything and shut down his store. Luckily we were able to get facebook to shutdown his page and get screen shots of everything before it was deleted. Lets take a look!
Matthew Skiff did this design for Ruckus Apparel. Brandon Day live traced the skull and deleted the pupil and spade.
New Jersey Housewives thought we wouldn’t notice!
But we did! Yes, folks...Jacqueline's bratty daughter with the entitled attitude, Ashley Holmes, from The Real Housewives of New Jersey ripped off Marion Bolognesi's artwork as her own. You can see this for yourself on Season 3's Episode titled "Auld Lang Syne for an Eye."
Ashley's Rip-Off
Marion's Original Piece
elmondo.es steals my fanart!!!
Elmondo used a fan art pic i drew a while back and posted on my deviant art gallery, they took it without permission and posted it along side one of their news articles, all without adding any line of credit to me the original artist. and as if that wasn't unprofessional enough, they choose not to post my public comments. or answer my many emails.
link to original article...
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2011/01/13/cultura/1294922146.html
here a link to the original peace and the pencil sketch!
i can understand if you thought is was the real cover, it actually happens alot. but the article is about the translated book, as in with a Spanish cover also, they should have known something was up. and i looked around the site no images have credit not even the writers it seems. but don't ignore my emails hoping it will blow over! I don't understand how according to their wiki they known as the number one source of news on the web in Spain. that bothers me.
elmondo takes my fan art!!!
New Yorker plagiarizes photo
Here is a new Shepard Fairey-wannabe. Whats horrible is that this image is in the New Yorker!!!!!
This photo owned by CMT:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/arts/television/17kink.html
Is blatantly traced by "artist" Daniel Hertzberg:
http://theispot.blogspot.com/2011/05/daniel-hertzberg-kinky-friedman.html
Judging from his website, he steals people's photos and traces them as art, selling it to magazines and newspapers. Shameful. He'll get sued someday or some publication like the New Yorker will.
[ed note: more likely, both.]
RESIDUE COMICS’ R. Lootine vs. XLARGE clothing
- XLARGE "CHUMP TEE" t-shirt released Fall 2010, looking a lot like artwork created by Residue Comics' R. Lootine years earlier.
Below is artwork that I created for a t-shirt design in 2005. The design is still available on stickers and patches. I often use it as an avatar for Residue Comics online. Notice, they even stole my character's proper name!
"Chump-on-a-Bike" by R. Lootine, c2005.
I made another version of this image for t-shirts in summer 2010. Better keep an eye out for copies of that one too!
[ed note: this one is just begging for a lawsuit, or at least a DMCA notice. The rip even has the exact same moovles and sweatles and dust fart details as the original.]
Vice magazine caught ripping off tshirtslayer.com content for Nike advertisement.
Legendary tshirt and battlejacket forum recently had a couple of it's entries ripped off by Vice magazine doing a flip-out booklet for Nike promoting their ulgy-as-shit plain jackets.
The response from Andy Capper editor of Vice magazine ? Apparently they don't give a very high priority to asking if they can use peoples content first.
99 vs. 50 Seinfeld References
I realize that at first glance, you may not see that many similarities between these two pieces. Let me start by saying that I created this 99 Seinfeld References piece for a group show in LA all about cult TV shows. I loved Seinfeld and was constantly quoting it, so I decided to do a piece based on all of the references I could think of, complete with a map & key.
After the show opened, this piece went viral on the internet, and I was contacted by a few t-shirt companies asking to print it, all coming up with very low offers (one very well-know site offered me $50 and 3 free t-shirts). I declined all offers, choosing to work with the gallery on Limited Edition prints instead. But then a few months later, this 50 Seinfeld References t-shirt shows up on those various sites all being distributed by the very company that contacted me to begin with.
Yes, they changed the amount of references and drew them out rather than painted them, but when you look closely, they completely stole from my "key" of ideas. Sometimes it's as if they just cut and pasted straight from it. I realize that because of the trademarks and whatnot, I can't do much about it, but I did not want this to go unnoticed.
My original piece HERE.
The ripoff t-shirt by Ripple Junction seen HERE.
Flip Video Logo Looks Familiar
First, here is the logo for Flip video cameras, which I believe was created in about 2006:
Next, I present a secondary logo for Flip Skateboards. This logo is tough to find as they have used a few different ones over the years, but I remember having a t-shirt with this one on it well before 2006.
[editor's note: Cisco killed the Flip line of cameras this week. If I had to guess whether the logo was the problem, I'd say probably not, but who knows? -sg ]