Stolen Work

[derschwigg]

let me offer some advice.

if this guy is sharing your work, allow him to do so. spread it around as much as possible. if it were a twitter thing i would RT with something like "thanks for sharing my X concept". never shy away from exposure,

if he is taking credit for your work, call him out on it. i think Wilcox probably did everything right in this situation in contacting instagram and such. just let everyone you know know that its your work and let him know you dont appreciate him being a twat

if he is making money from your work, this is where it gets good. keep your sketches and original files and everything you have of the work to prove you did it. the final work needs to be copyrighted. if anyone steals and profits from your work, you can claim their profits. lawyers should see your case and jump at this opportunity. and they dont get paid unless you do. i believe the minimum court settlement on copyright infringement is $25,000 but id have to double check that number.

This is all great! Thanks for sharing.

The bottom line, unfortunately, is this: if they're not directly making money off the "plagiarism," there isn't a whole lot you can do aside from asking "Hey, either give me credit or please stop posting my work" or (going off Moore's advice) feigning gratitude with a "Thanks for sharing my work!" tweet/comment. You could even go one step further and somewhat hijack the post by saying "Thanks for the kind words about my work! If you'd like to see more, check out my website/portfolio here!"

Every situation is different, but all points offered in this thread are extremely valid.

[colinturner95]

let me offer some advice.

if this guy is sharing your work, allow him to do so. spread it around as much as possible. if it were a twitter thing i would RT with something like "thanks for sharing my X concept". never shy away from exposure,

if he is taking credit for your work, call him out on it. i think Wilcox probably did everything right in this situation in contacting instagram and such. just let everyone you know know that its your work and let him know you dont appreciate him being a twat

if he is making money from your work, this is where it gets good. keep your sketches and original files and everything you have of the work to prove you did it. the final work needs to be copyrighted. if anyone steals and profits from your work, you can claim their profits. lawyers should see your case and jump at this opportunity. and they dont get paid unless you do. i believe the minimum court settlement on copyright infringement is $25,000 but id have to double check that number.

I'm not sure that he is making money off my work. But the thing is with avconcepts, he posts my jerseys, says (photo credit Bkknight95) but when he gets comments saying how good these are, these are awesome, he doesn't shy away from the attention. For all he cares, their his concepts once he posts them.

[Clintau24]

One more thing about copyrights - whenever a piece of work is made (photo taken, drawing completed, etc), the owner of the work is entitled to a copyright on that piece. That alone doesn't hold much weight in court, but it's a given in protection. One can always go the extra step and actually claim the copyright. You can do this straight through the US Copyright's website. I think it's only $35 per piece. But this would certainly be a last ditch resort.

[BrandMooreArt]

One more thing about copyrights - whenever a piece of work is made (photo taken, drawing completed, etc), the owner of the work is entitled to a copyright on that piece. That alone doesn't hold much weight in court, but it's a given in protection. One can always go the extra step and actually claim the copyright. You can do this straight through the US Copyright's website. I think it's only $35 per piece. But this would certainly be a last ditch resort.

yes $35 a piece. but that "piece" is the important part. dont spend $35 on EVERY logo and bit of work you do. make a book, put everything in it, then for the same price, all of your work in it is protected

[Clintau24]

One more thing about copyrights - whenever a piece of work is made (photo taken, drawing completed, etc), the owner of the work is entitled to a copyright on that piece. That alone doesn't hold much weight in court, but it's a given in protection. One can always go the extra step and actually claim the copyright. You can do this straight through the US Copyright's website. I think it's only $35 per piece. But this would certainly be a last ditch resort.

yes $35 a piece. but that "piece" is the important part. dont spend $35 on EVERY logo and bit of work you do. make a book, put everything in it, then for the same price, all of your work in it is protected

This is a much cheaper way to do it...I had a twitter photo stolen and used on a very bad Alabama website that mocked me, Auburn, and everything else and they never credited to me and it infuriated me. So I had some guys tell me about the $35 per piece.

[JPDesign]

I once saw a cake at the grocery store with a James Harden wallpaper I had made on it. You can spot my watermark on the bottom right. Delicious plagiarism.

[Clintau24]

I once saw a cake at the grocery store with a James Harden wallpaper I had made on it. You can spot my watermark on the bottom right. Delicious plagiarism.

That's hilarious actually. Hard to be upset at a chocolate goodness cake...unless you're allergic...

[Alex Houston]

I once saw a cake at the grocery store with a James Harden wallpaper I had made on it. You can spot my watermark on the bottom right. Delicious plagiarism.

Do people just not care any iota anymore about blatantly ripping off someone's creative work? Clearly they don't but the audacity of some of this is just frightening. Hopefully, everyone can follow Slapshot's and BrandMoore's advice and prevent these scumbags from profiteering off others works.

[derschwigg]

One more thing about copyrights - whenever a piece of work is made (photo taken, drawing completed, etc), the owner of the work is entitled to a copyright on that piece. That alone doesn't hold much weight in court, but it's a given in protection. One can always go the extra step and actually claim the copyright. You can do this straight through the US Copyright's website. I think it's only $35 per piece. But this would certainly be a last ditch resort.

yes $35 a piece. but that "piece" is the important part. dont spend $35 on EVERY logo and bit of work you do. make a book, put everything in it, then for the same price, all of your work in it is protected

This is a much cheaper way to do it...I had a twitter photo stolen and used on a very bad Alabama website that mocked me, Auburn, and everything else and they never credited to me and it infuriated me. So I had some guys tell me about the $35 per piece.

If I remember my IP Law class correctly, you could copyright a website and continually upload your content to it and not even need a book.

[NOppenheimer]

I once saw a cake at the grocery store with a James Harden wallpaper I had made on it. You can spot my watermark on the bottom right. Delicious plagiarism.

Still, you've gotta admit that's pretty sick to have your design on a cake.

[GeauxColonels]

well I'm not sure whether he has bought these logos from the maker, but here:

Stolen Saints logo: http://mvptees.com/collections/frontpage/products/kap-copy

Stolen Eagles logo: http://mvptees.com/collections/frontpage/products/t-dallascopy

Stolen Jets logo: http://mvptees.com/collections/football/products/packcopy-1

Stolen Colts logo: http://mvptees.com/collections/football/products/bosscopy

Stolen Browns logo: http://mvptees.com/collections/football/products/luckycopy

& I know he removed others from the site, but here is where the logos came from, I recognized them as soon as I saw them

I seem to recall seeing this Detroit Lions logo posted on here as well: http://mvptees.com/collections/frontpage/products/dencopy

[YelichGraphics]

The penguins stole wanka's but you really can't be mad at that

But it was on a hockey concept site

[derschwigg]

The penguins stole wanka's but you really can't be mad at that

But it was on a hockey concept site

That sort of blind ambivalence is the most dangerous: that if a person/organization is big enough, it's not as bad - when in fact, it's way worse. Sure, they kept Wonka's name on the post, but it doesn't look like they credited him at all.

Can someone give more insight on this specific situation?

[YelichGraphics]

The penguins stole wanka's but you really can't be mad at that

But it was on a hockey concept site

That sort of blind ambivalence is the most dangerous: that if a person/organization is big enough, it's not as bad - when in fact, it's way worse. Sure, they kept Wonka's name on the post, but it doesn't look like they credited him at all.

Can someone give more insight on this specific situation?

thats all i know i took a screen shot. it was an a hockey concept site let me find it.

http://www.hockeyjerseyconcepts.com/p/concept-of-week_6.html

[officeglenn]

The penguins stole wanka's but you really can't be mad at that

But it was on a hockey concept site

That sort of blind ambivalence is the most dangerous: that if a person/organization is big enough, it's not as bad - when in fact, it's way worse. Sure, they kept Wonka's name on the post, but it doesn't look like they credited him at all.

Can someone give more insight on this specific situation?

That appears to be a Photoshop job that either Wonka did himself or someone at HJC did to make it look like it came from the Penguins' official account.

[MrWonka]

The penguins stole wanka's but you really can't be mad at that

But it was on a hockey concept site

That sort of blind ambivalence is the most dangerous: that if a person/organization is big enough, it's not as bad - when in fact, it's way worse. Sure, they kept Wonka's name on the post, but it doesn't look like they credited him at all.

Can someone give more insight on this specific situation?

That appears to be a Photoshop job that either Wonka did himself or someone at HJC did to make it look like it came from the Penguins' official account.

ding ding ding. it was a presentation design I had to make it look like it was official.

[chrysleraspen08]

Maybe the Concepts forum should be made private like the Requests forum to help cut down on outsiders' plagiarism.

That's a very good idea.

Agreed. Although, what's to stop them from creating a account just so they have access to concepts?

Set it up so you need to reach a certain number of posts to unlocked access to the Concepts forum.

I agree with some sort of limit. Sure, it might suck for the people who don't post often who like looking at concepts, but it will help stop the stolen work. Maybe a lock until a user hits either 500 or even up to 1,000 posts?

[YelichGraphics]

Maybe the Concepts forum should be made private like the Requests forum to help cut down on outsiders' plagiarism.

That's a very good idea.

Agreed. Although, what's to stop them from creating a account just so they have access to concepts?

Set it up so you need to reach a certain number of posts to unlocked access to the Concepts forum.

I agree with some sort of limit. Sure, it might suck for the people who don't post often who like looking at concepts, but it will help stop the stolen work. Maybe a lock until a user hits either 500 or even up to 1,000 posts?

at least 100. 500 is too much

[CAB]

As far as I know, none of my work on this site has been stolen, but I can't say I'm completely sure about some of my other artwork.

Is anyone else familiar with the site Redbubble? A few months ago I designed shirts for my brother and we needed a site to sell them through. I didn't end up using Redbubble, but I checked out some of the stuff on the site. I found that one of my designs (a Breaking Bad illustration I had only posted on dribbble at the time) had been stolen and was being used on a t-shirt (a poorly designed one at that). I contacted Redbubble and the user that posted it and he removed it from the site, saying "I didn't know it was yours, I found it on a Breaking Bad blog." Okay, he removed it, he didn't sell anything, so I should have nothing to worry about. But it still upsets me that this guy would see it on a blog and think it's okay to take it and try to make a profit. I don't really have a problem with my work being posted on tumblr because it's more like "hey, look at this cool thing I found," not outright theft.

If you do some more searching on Redbubble, you'll see that a lot of their user-posted designs are either complete crap or copy-paste jobs of stolen art. I can't prove that any of them are stolen, but they just have that look to them. Of course, I could be a little paranoid because one of my designs was stolen. When I contacted Redbubble about my stolen art I also mentioned that they likely have more stolen work on their site but they gave no response.

[NOppenheimer]

Maybe the Concepts forum should be made private like the Requests forum to help cut down on outsiders' plagiarism.

That's a very good idea.

Agreed. Although, what's to stop them from creating a account just so they have access to concepts?

Set it up so you need to reach a certain number of posts to unlocked access to the Concepts forum.

I agree with some sort of limit. Sure, it might suck for the people who don't post often who like looking at concepts, but it will help stop the stolen work. Maybe a lock until a user hits either 500 or even up to 1,000 posts?

No. WAYYY too much. Most of your posts as a new member should be in the concepts sections, that's what this forum is about.