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ACC Tournament Plagiarized My Work it seems


jaha32

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On May 31, 2016 at 11:09 PM, jaha32 said:

This apparently happened last year but I just stumbled upon it today. The 2015 ACC Women's Basketball Tournament in Greensboro logo looks extremely similar to a logo of my own that I created two years ago (one year prior to the 2015 ACC tournaments) for a former assistant coach at St. Joe's who was planning to start his own youth basketball camp called "School of Hoops".

 

I'm not surprised anymore to see work stolen/plagiarized from me or other honest designers out there, since this is definitely not the first time this has happened to me, but the reason this feels different is that I am kind of surprised that one of the largest conferences in the country would be stooped by whoever they contracted to design this. I know the SEC goes to the big guys like Joe Bosack or TJ Harley for their tournament logos which would more or less guarantee the authenticity of each logo created.

 

The composition of the logos is really nothing unique or groundbreaking. I can't claim ownership to the idea of words arched/over under a ball of some kind and a shield since there are probably plenty of other logos out there with similar traits and we are all inspired by what's been done even if it is subconsciously, but when looking at my logo side by side with the ACC logo, there is no doubt in my mind that the ACC logo is just an alteration of what I started since every bit of line work is identical. I overlapped the ACC logo on top of mine and it is identical. The identical highlighting and line work on the ball is what struck me the most.

 

I don't really intend to pursue this since it'd just be a useless headache, but I was wondering if anyone had info on who the ACC hired to 'design' this particular 2015 women's tourney logo.

 

I broke down the basic similarities in the image below.

I saw the logo still in use on the ACC's website as well as in videos of the actual games.

http://www.theacc.com/page/2015-womens-basketball-tournament-history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_ACC_Women%27s_Basketball_Tournament

 

ACC-Plagiarized-Greg-Hahn-Logo.png

 

this article says who designed the 2016 one, not accusing the person mentioned, but the 2015 logo may have been done in-house as well.

 

http://www.theacc.com/news/acc-unveils-2016-women-s-basketball-tournament-logo-09-09-2015

 

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2 hours ago, meetthemets said:

LOL 

 

Very rarely does infringement go anywhere, and the best you can hope for is cease and desist even if you have a legit case. To claim any sort of monetary damage you have to demonstrate some economic loss so good luck with that. You would also have to demonstrate that the acc logo generated significant sums of revenue which is likely somewhere in the thousands, of which only a small% would be attributed to the stolen logo. The only relevant examples that I know of this happening are the ravens original helmet logo and the disney-angels A wing logo. Both were discontinued, and I don't think the ravens had to pay out anything (possibly a nominal amount) and I think the angels were sold and reverted back to the halo before anything notable happened with that issue.

 

Bottom line is designers find inspiration in other designs and that has been the case for over a century and will continue moving forward. Proving your work has been infringed upon/plagarized and not coincidental has traditionally proved to be extremely difficult.

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Lol at the 15% different nonsense. 

"The views expressed here are mine and do not reflect the official opinion of my employer or the organization through which the Internet was accessed."

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8 hours ago, Derek said:

 

this article says who designed the 2016 one, not accusing the person mentioned, but the 2015 logo may have been done in-house as well.

 

http://www.theacc.com/news/acc-unveils-2016-women-s-basketball-tournament-logo-09-09-2015

 

 

Thanks for the link, Derek. I actually saw this article but was informed by the ACC that the 2015 design was done out of office.

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As I said in the original post, I do not claim ownership to the idea of a certain arrangement of common elements such as a banner, ball, and crest. The point of me posting this here is more along the lines that there is someone out there who gets big clients like the ACC, but still is okay with preying on the designs of others to complete the job. I find it unethical regardless of what legally falls under the 15% rule, etc... Any artist can recognize their own work. 

 

@O.C.D.: The degree to which the basketball lines get thicker at the bottom of the ball is exactly the same, and it's more about the highlights. As far as the basketball lines being a fraction of a millimeter thinner, the stroke function is a fun tool. 

 

Although all this talk about what constitutes infringement is interesting, I did not not say whether I intend to pursue this legally or not. Common sense tells you one logo is just an alteration of another, but yes, proving it legally is a whole other matter assuming there is anything to even gain, which there may not be. 

 

16 hours ago, Thomas said:

Thanks.

But does that not lead to many discussions about who posted it first, and where ?

I provided the ACC with more exact dates and links than I posted here.

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16 hours ago, guest23 said:

 

Very rarely does infringement go anywhere, and the best you can hope for is cease and desist even if you have a legit case. To claim any sort of monetary damage you have to demonstrate some economic loss so good luck with that. You would also have to demonstrate that the acc logo generated significant sums of revenue which is likely somewhere in the thousands, of which only a small% would be attributed to the stolen logo. The only relevant examples that I know of this happening are the ravens original helmet logo and the disney-angels A wing logo. Both were discontinued, and I don't think the ravens had to pay out anything (possibly a nominal amount) and I think the angels were sold and reverted back to the halo before anything notable happened with that issue.

 

Bottom line is designers find inspiration in other designs and that has been the case for over a century and will continue moving forward. Proving your work has been infringed upon/plagarized and not coincidental has traditionally proved to be extremely difficult.

 

The comment was on your '>15%' comment, which is utterly absurd. Show me where this exists in any sort of trademark law. 

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I think everybody accepts that there are certain design commonalities that will always crop up.  A basketball on a shield with a banner could be created independently by any number of designers without any infringement at all.   There's also the possibility of subconscious or unintentional infringement, where a designer half-remembers a previous design and incorporates its elements into a new one. 

 

But that's not at all what happened here.  It's abundantly clear that somebody took jaha32's original design and started monkeying around with it.  There's this belief that somehow that's okay, but it isn't.  A professional designer should know better.

 

If you start with somebody else's design, there is no magic percentage of changes where you will suddenly own the result.

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What you need to do is get a lawyer, have him/her get in touch with the ACC's legal team, set up a Skype meeting, and ask them for "one...million...dollars," and then put your little finger on the corner of your mouth while petting your cat with your other hand. They'll have no choice but to immediately give in to your demands.

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24 minutes ago, MCM0313 said:

What you need to do is get a lawyer, have him/her get in touch with the ACC's legal team, set up a Skype meeting, and ask them for "one...million...dollars," and then put your little finger on the corner of your mouth while petting your cat with your other hand. They'll have no choice but to immediately give in to your demands.

And sharks with lasers.  This is key.

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8 hours ago, Gothamite said:

I think everybody accepts that there are certain design commonalities that will always crop up.  A basketball on a shield with a banner could be created independently by any number of designers without any infringement at all.   There's also the possibility of subconscious or unintentional infringement, where a designer half-remembers a previous design and incorporates its elements into a new one. 

 

But that's not at all what happened here.  It's abundantly clear that somebody took jaha32's original design and started monkeying around with it.  There's this belief that somehow that's okay, but it isn't.  A professional designer should know better.

 

If you start with somebody else's design, there is no magic percentage of changes where you will suddenly own the result.

Actually in music there is. There's a maximum number of consecutive notes that can be the same, I think. At least that's what I heard. I believe the lawsuit over Vanilla Ice copying the bassline from "Under Pressure" had to do with that.

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39 minutes ago, TheLogoManiac13 said:

Honestly, I think you took your basketball design from the Pelicans who unveiled their set in 2013

2681_new_orleans_pelicans-primary-2014.p5127_new_orleans_pelicans-secondary-2014

Here is the article for the reveal: http://news.sportslogos.net/2013/01/24/new-orleans-hornets-rebrand-as-pelicans-unveil-new-logos/

 

Jaha32 changed his 15% (sarcasm).

 

Please re-exam the basketballs of both respective logos. There are only so many ways to draw a straight on basketball, however, jaha's has varying weights, where as the Pelicans is pretty mono. Jaha's highlights lay over the ball, the Pelicans logo has the highlight around the top edge, making a crescent, for what I would assume represents crescent city...

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1 hour ago, Derek said:

 

Jaha32 changed his 15% (sarcasm).

 

Please re-exam the basketballs of both respective logos. There are only so many ways to draw a straight on basketball, however, jaha's has varying weights, where as the Pelicans is pretty mono. Jaha's highlights lay over the ball, the Pelicans logo has the highlight around the top edge, making a crescent, for what I would assume represents crescent city...

I do see your point but I wanted to bring new life to this. I see somewhat of a resemblance and was doing two things: First, show that a basketball can't be done with much creativity and second, I was showing resemblances to the Pelicans logos released a year prior.

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I don’t intend to counter everyone who for whatever reason chooses not to see it, but by posting the Pelicans logo, it actually furthers the case against this 2015 ACC women's tourney logo. We could continue gathering all sorts of logos with basketballs and words arched around them on a path, and all it’d do is show 1) that the School of Hoops logo and 2015 ACC Tourney logo stand out as identical in many ways compared to the others because they have the same origin, and 2) there are countless ways to render and stylize similar compositions, so no reason to plagiarize.

 

The School of Hoops logo I created was based off this graphic below which I was provided back in April 2014 and I was asked to improve upon. It had symmetrical basketball lines of slightly varying line widths, so I kept that symmetry in the update. As much as I love Ben Barnes' work and that Pelicans logo, it had nothing to do with the Pelicans. About the under arched lettering, one of the best solutions for fitting such a lengthy phrase like 'ACADEMIC BASKETBALL CAMP' into a logo just so happens to be placing it on an arched path, so that's what I did.

 

The point is: You can get inspiration and ideas from anywhere, but make sure to start off with a clean canvas, especially if you’re a professional graphic designer entrusted by a nationally known organization like the ACC who will then broadcast the logo all over the world right back onto the very same computer screen where the original logo was first designed.

 

School of Hoops Original Graphic.JPG

 

 

 

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