My photo of a Jaguar E-Type from Flickr being used on Gap clothing designs
I'm sure that The Gap has a totally awesome explanation for why this photo of mine, published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license, is apparently being used by babyGap on the Grey Pumice version of the "Thermal body double" onesie (SKU #785589) and the 2-in-1 moto one-piece at gap.com.
Readers of Jezebel, YCombinator's Hacker News, Media Bistro's Unbeige, Styleite, SFist, and more all seem to be curious, too.
RESERVED rips off Rockie Nolan (updated!)
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!
Busted Tees Ripped Off “I’m With Coco!”
As you may have noticed, there's been a huge buzz lately about artist Mike Mitchell's piece "I'm With Coco". He's been insanely busy doing promo work for the image, among other things. On his behalf, I'm writing this.
His piece has become an overnight sensation since being posted 1/12/2010. In the short 4 days its been up, it was already ripped-off by BustedTees.com.
Here is the original and rip-off, side by side:
Coco Rip-Off is a No-Go!
Really sickening that they tried to get away with this!
Mike Mitchell's Original Piece on Deviant Art
Stealing art is rude.
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...
Upper Playground doesn’t play well with others
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
Counter-Balance Rips-Off No Rival Design
Original NO RIVAL T-Shirt Design from Line Sheet | May 2008
Original NO RIVAL T-Shirt Design from Season 1 Photo Shoot
Counter-Balance T-Shirt Design Rip-Off Using the Image of Lucifer
Suspect.
--------------
Jay Jays rip off T-Shirt Hell bigtime!
Was out shopping on the weekend and i thought i'd go have a peek in a jay jays store on the off chance i saw something not quite right. well to say my jaw nearly hit the ground was an understatement. to my horror i saw 7 designs that t-shirt hell have released, on sale in jay jays. so i got out my phone and got snap happy. the pics on the left are t-shirt hell's, the right are the jay jays knock offs. i emailed t-shirt hell making them aware of it, just waiting on a reply.
All Saints Shirt Rips-Off 4CR’s Valentine Card
I frequent a comics/nintendo blog called 4 Color Rebellion, run by a small group of people with a pretty tight knit fan base. They posted some gaming themed Valentine's day cards- and apparently one of those designs was lifted and is appearing on shirts in a chain of upscale fashion stores in the UK called All Saints. 4CR does a lot of charity stuff (Child's Play donations, etc...) So it's a bummer that All Saints is making a (pretty hefty) profit on a design they didn't ask permission for.
Here is a link to 4CR's own story about the plagiarism discovery
And here is the All Saints store rip-off