THIS ACCOUNT IS STILL ACTIVE?!
Holy crap.
Lots of stuff happening since I last updated, whenever that was. I'm in the middle of finals and in the process of trying to not lose my mind. But I want to reproduce the following from Stuart Immonen's blog @ immonen.ca.
(http://www.immonen.ca/news/archives/963)
copyright theft, and how it hurts the ones you love
filed in: work, found, industry, art, www, personal, events Saturday April 19, 2008 | permalink
It’sfunny and strange how you get to know people- as has become quitenormal for me, and probably for you, too, many of the human beings thatI consider my friends- those with whom I confide and bitch and laugh-I’ve never actually met. Some I’ve never even spoken to on thetelephone, or written a letter, or exchanged any kind of communicationexcept this kind, virtually, online. And yet, I would do things forthem that I would do for any friend.
So, one of my friends has been hurt by theft, and I find itespecially frustrating because this thing that brings us together isalso the engine for this malicious act, and many others like it. I alsofind if frustrating that so often, people see the internet as a movablefeast, the assumption being that “a little infringement” doesn’t do anyharm, but it does. When someone copys music, or drawings, or words,that person dilutes their value, and damages the person who took painsto create them. The thing someone wanted so badly for his or her own,but was not willing to pay for, still comes at a price. I’ll let Luc tell the rest:
My illustrations, stolen and published in new book
So, here’s a super crappy way to start your day.
Yesterday, my pal Darren Di Lieto, from The Little Chimp Societywebsite, emailed with some upsetting news. Turns out someone scrapedthe contents of his website and published it into a 350-page book beingsold online for $100. You can read more on this post in Darren’s blog.
This book - which reprints without permission several dozen artistinterviews which Darren had posted on the LCS blog - transcribes theseinterviews word-for-word, including the artwork, and was “published”under the title “Colorful Illustrations 93°C”. The book even includes aCD with all the illustrations from the book, all lifted off the site aswell. Here’s a link to a gallery of scansthat Darren made of each page of the book, with a close-up below of oneof the two spreads which feature the interview Darren did of me (Ican’t help but notice the thieves omitted the illustration of the twobig gay muscle Daddies, chickens!):
The publisher - one very fake sounding “Great Creativityorganization” [sic] - is allegedly in Hong Kong, so pursuing legalaction seems pretty pointless, seeing as China has such a sparklingreputation for respecting copyright law. The ISBN they provide - ISBN978-988-98142-0-5 - is also a fake. You can easily search ISBNdatabases online, and this number comes up empty.
“OMG! You should totally sue them!”
Yes, this is everyone’s first reaction, right after red-faced anger.Well, let me just grab my wallet and… oh, right, I draw pictures for aliving! This means I’m lucky if I have enough money to pay some billsfor the next few months, but not quite enough to launch a class-actionlawsuit across international borders against a bogus copyrightinfringing publisher in China.
And here’s a troubling thought: How many more such projects is this“Great Creativity organization” publisher working on right now? Maybeanother illustration book, this time filled with YOUR WORK? Maybefilled with content scraped from similar sites, such as IllustrationMundo, or Drawn!, or even Boing Boing? Or how about a lovely coffeetable book full of high rez photos scraped off of Flickr?
So what are we going to do?
Several things. First, Darren has tried calling the currentre-sellers, both in Spain and Japan, who so far both refuse to pull thebook. This makes sense, as there’s not enough evidence for them to makeup their minds right now (although I fail to see how or why a bookstorewould so carelessly stock a book with a fake ISBN number, and not beinterested to find out if they’re selling a plagiarized book).
He then tried locating the publisher, but of course they printed abunch of fake contact info in the book so that’s useless. Thedistributor seems to be a company called Azur Corporation.They too have been impossible to reach. As we understand it, re-sellersand distributors who don’t pull plagiarized books from the circulationcan be held accountable as co-plagiarists.
The main thing we want to do right now, is flood the web with thetruth about this plagiarized book and its publisher, both to avoid anymore poor suckers from shelling out $100 to these thieves, and to warnother bookstores against getting involved with these scam artists. Yousay: “So what if the internet is full of negative press regarding thiscompany and their plagiarized book?” Well, YOU try recovering from thebacklash of negative press after search engines yield nothing but redflags and warnings against your company or product.
Yes, the damage is done. The book has been printed, distributed, andis being sold. This doesn’t mean we’re powerless and unable to stop anyfuture distribution of the book, and hopefully of any future projectsthey have planned.
We need your help
First, please re-distribute this blog post. Repost the whole thing, or part of it, in your blog, with links and tags included.
Next, use whatever social networks and news sharing sites you useevery day - Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, Magnolia, Digg, StumbleUpon,Facebook - to spread the word about this overpriced book full ofplagiarized and stolen content. Feel free to quote us, and remember toalso include the same keywords and tags in your posts. (Darren’s and mysite makes this very easy already, with the little green “Share This”button at the bottom of every post in my blog.)
The result is that we may be able at least to shame these boguspublishers into removing this book from circulation and scare them backinto their caves. A public apology, as well as forking over all themonies from sales, would be nice too but I’m not gonna hold my breath.
What else?
The longer term plan will involve approaching the current andpossible future re-sellers and distributors with legal documents andpress releases proving that this book is 100% full of plagiarized andstolen content, and calling for them to stop carrying the book.
We have a few more ideas too. We’re nothing if not creativeindividuals. Speaking of which, if you have any ideas and thoughts onthis, we’d love to hear them!
I’ll keep you posted, and thanks for your help folks!
Lots of stuff happening since I last updated, whenever that was. I'm in the middle of finals and in the process of trying to not lose my mind. But I want to reproduce the following from Stuart Immonen's blog @ immonen.ca.
(http://www.immonen.ca/news/archives/963)
copyright theft, and how it hurts the ones you love
filed in: work, found, industry, art, www, personal, events Saturday April 19, 2008 | permalink
It’sfunny and strange how you get to know people- as has become quitenormal for me, and probably for you, too, many of the human beings thatI consider my friends- those with whom I confide and bitch and laugh-I’ve never actually met. Some I’ve never even spoken to on thetelephone, or written a letter, or exchanged any kind of communicationexcept this kind, virtually, online. And yet, I would do things forthem that I would do for any friend.
So, one of my friends has been hurt by theft, and I find itespecially frustrating because this thing that brings us together isalso the engine for this malicious act, and many others like it. I alsofind if frustrating that so often, people see the internet as a movablefeast, the assumption being that “a little infringement” doesn’t do anyharm, but it does. When someone copys music, or drawings, or words,that person dilutes their value, and damages the person who took painsto create them. The thing someone wanted so badly for his or her own,but was not willing to pay for, still comes at a price. I’ll let Luc tell the rest:
My illustrations, stolen and published in new book
So, here’s a super crappy way to start your day.
Yesterday, my pal Darren Di Lieto, from The Little Chimp Societywebsite, emailed with some upsetting news. Turns out someone scrapedthe contents of his website and published it into a 350-page book beingsold online for $100. You can read more on this post in Darren’s blog.
This book - which reprints without permission several dozen artistinterviews which Darren had posted on the LCS blog - transcribes theseinterviews word-for-word, including the artwork, and was “published”under the title “Colorful Illustrations 93°C”. The book even includes aCD with all the illustrations from the book, all lifted off the site aswell. Here’s a link to a gallery of scansthat Darren made of each page of the book, with a close-up below of oneof the two spreads which feature the interview Darren did of me (Ican’t help but notice the thieves omitted the illustration of the twobig gay muscle Daddies, chickens!):
The publisher - one very fake sounding “Great Creativityorganization” [sic] - is allegedly in Hong Kong, so pursuing legalaction seems pretty pointless, seeing as China has such a sparklingreputation for respecting copyright law. The ISBN they provide - ISBN978-988-98142-0-5 - is also a fake. You can easily search ISBNdatabases online, and this number comes up empty.
“OMG! You should totally sue them!”
Yes, this is everyone’s first reaction, right after red-faced anger.Well, let me just grab my wallet and… oh, right, I draw pictures for aliving! This means I’m lucky if I have enough money to pay some billsfor the next few months, but not quite enough to launch a class-actionlawsuit across international borders against a bogus copyrightinfringing publisher in China.
And here’s a troubling thought: How many more such projects is this“Great Creativity organization” publisher working on right now? Maybeanother illustration book, this time filled with YOUR WORK? Maybefilled with content scraped from similar sites, such as IllustrationMundo, or Drawn!, or even Boing Boing? Or how about a lovely coffeetable book full of high rez photos scraped off of Flickr?
So what are we going to do?
Several things. First, Darren has tried calling the currentre-sellers, both in Spain and Japan, who so far both refuse to pull thebook. This makes sense, as there’s not enough evidence for them to makeup their minds right now (although I fail to see how or why a bookstorewould so carelessly stock a book with a fake ISBN number, and not beinterested to find out if they’re selling a plagiarized book).
He then tried locating the publisher, but of course they printed abunch of fake contact info in the book so that’s useless. Thedistributor seems to be a company called Azur Corporation.They too have been impossible to reach. As we understand it, re-sellersand distributors who don’t pull plagiarized books from the circulationcan be held accountable as co-plagiarists.
The main thing we want to do right now, is flood the web with thetruth about this plagiarized book and its publisher, both to avoid anymore poor suckers from shelling out $100 to these thieves, and to warnother bookstores against getting involved with these scam artists. Yousay: “So what if the internet is full of negative press regarding thiscompany and their plagiarized book?” Well, YOU try recovering from thebacklash of negative press after search engines yield nothing but redflags and warnings against your company or product.
Yes, the damage is done. The book has been printed, distributed, andis being sold. This doesn’t mean we’re powerless and unable to stop anyfuture distribution of the book, and hopefully of any future projectsthey have planned.
We need your help
First, please re-distribute this blog post. Repost the whole thing, or part of it, in your blog, with links and tags included.
Next, use whatever social networks and news sharing sites you useevery day - Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, Magnolia, Digg, StumbleUpon,Facebook - to spread the word about this overpriced book full ofplagiarized and stolen content. Feel free to quote us, and remember toalso include the same keywords and tags in your posts. (Darren’s and mysite makes this very easy already, with the little green “Share This”button at the bottom of every post in my blog.)
The result is that we may be able at least to shame these boguspublishers into removing this book from circulation and scare them backinto their caves. A public apology, as well as forking over all themonies from sales, would be nice too but I’m not gonna hold my breath.
What else?
The longer term plan will involve approaching the current andpossible future re-sellers and distributors with legal documents andpress releases proving that this book is 100% full of plagiarized andstolen content, and calling for them to stop carrying the book.
We have a few more ideas too. We’re nothing if not creativeindividuals. Speaking of which, if you have any ideas and thoughts onthis, we’d love to hear them!
I’ll keep you posted, and thanks for your help folks!