There are far too many people that are pre-programmed to ask for
forgiveness after stealing your artwork than there are those that would ask for your permission to use it first.
Some time ago I was fooling around with the Google reverse image search functions. I fed in about a dozen photos of designs and paintings and around the 13 or 14 one, something happened. It kicked back a whole bunch of results. Here was one of my designs being used without my permission all over the web. There were 28 hits in total. 27 were all one guy that had my design up on different t-shirt sale websites, and one from a university.
First I contacted the websites one by one and started asking them to pull it down. If needed, I emailed them copies of the original pencil sketches, inked drawings, and even linked them to where the exact version of the picture was taken from. Which made it obvious that the design was indeed mine. This was slow going but I eventually got them all pulled, and the guy got banned from all of them. Not that I think that will stop him from doing it again and again and if not with my art, than maybe yours.
The university was another story altogether. They were adamant about their design being done by their designer who was highly respected and blah blah blah. After much pushing on my part, they eventually asked the designer. He told them they paid only enough to get him to throw something together quick. He grabbed a random image off of an art website that fit the criteria and used it. He admitted his fault and the school stopped using it immediately. They nicely sent me a letter of apology and went about their business in my good standings. Since they were not selling anything with the image on it and not making a profit from its use (A few flyers and banners for their sports team) I did not see any need to pursue further.
I would suggest that all artists start a quarterly reverse image search of your works and make sure you are not being robbed as well.
Protecting your intellectual property has always been a difficult task and the Internet has only served to complicate matters. The web has become an unoriginal designer’s one stop shop for endless material to shamelessly ripoff. there is an immensely blurred line between inspiration and theft. Exactly where that line lies is perhaps different for every designer. But for me, it boils down to just being plain wrong. If you can't be a decent creative person with out stealing from someone else... Stop claiming to be a creative person. But then again Pablo Picasso did say that "Good artists copy, great artists steal."
There are far too many people that are pre-programmed to ask for forgiveness after stealing your artwork than there are those that would ask for your permission to use it first.
Some time ago I was fooling around with the Google reverse image search functions. I fed in about a dozen photos of designs and paintings and around the 13 or 14 one, something happened. It kicked back a whole bunch of results. Here was one of my designs being used without my permission all over the web. There were 28 hits in total. 27 were all one guy that had my design up on different t-shirt sale websites, and one from a university.
First I contacted the websites one by one and started asking them to pull it down. If needed, I emailed them copies of the original pencil sketches, inked drawings, and even linked them to where the exact version of the picture was taken from. Which made it obvious that the design was indeed mine. This was slow going but I eventually got them all pulled, and the guy got banned from all of them. Not that I think that will stop him from doing it again and again and if not with my art, than maybe yours.
The university was another story altogether. They were adamant about their design being done by their designer who was highly respected and blah blah blah. After much pushing on my part, they eventually asked the designer. He told them they paid only enough to get him to throw something together quick. He grabbed a random image off of an art website that fit the criteria and used it. He admitted his fault and the school stopped using it immediately. They nicely sent me a letter of apology and went about their business in my good standings. Since they were not selling anything with the image on it and not making a profit from its use (A few flyers and banners for their sports team) I did not see any need to pursue further.
I would suggest that all artists start a quarterly reverse image search of your works and make sure you are not being robbed as well.
I would suggest that all artists start a quarterly reverse image search of your works and make sure you are not being robbed as well.
Protecting your intellectual property has always been a difficult task and the Internet has only served to complicate matters. The web has become an unoriginal designer’s one stop shop for endless material to shamelessly ripoff. there is an immensely blurred line between inspiration and theft. Exactly where that line lies is perhaps different for every designer. But for me, it boils down to just being plain wrong. If you can't be a decent creative person with out stealing from someone else... Stop claiming to be a creative person. But then again Pablo Picasso did say that "Good artists copy, great artists steal."
I've had to do that with a couple of my old pieces. One typography piece was nabbed by a big website so I made them provide a link to my deviant art profile because it was worth the nabbing for the publicity. For some odd reason, people that everything on the internet is fair game. It's annoying as hell. i really don't want to slap ugly-ass watermarks all over my work, but I've been tempted at times.
ReplyDeleteCornelius, I agree. I did try that with the University, but they did not want to have anything to do with it. I guess since they couldn't afford to hire someone that would actually do the work... they must not have had the money to pay me to use my design. :)
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