I was in FNAC in Madrid last week browsing the design/illustration section when Louise brought over a book called "Colorful Illustrations 93ºC" to show me (in particular the work of Ryan Cox, great stuff). Whilst flicking through it's 380 pages I stumbled across two double page spreads of my own work! Which I knew nothing about! All images had been dragged off my website. Six of the images had never been in print before. The book's publishers are based in Hong Kong and I haven't seen a copy anywhere else. It's nice to be featured in a book but the worrying thing is all images are included on a CD in the back. This seems to give the impression that all the featured images are clip-art or copyright free which is certainly not the case. Cheeky sods. Has anyone else who reads this blog found themselves in this situation before?
UPDATE Darren Di Lieto (the person who runs the fantastic Little Chimp Society website and the person who conducted all the interviews in this book) has blogged about this and posted scans of almost every page here. At least the illustrators have had their work credited. Darren's interviews have been reprinted word for word without mention of his name or his website. He is, understandably, very annoyed. Read his post and spread the word.
10 comments:
Hmm, I'm sure you'd have liked the opportunity to provide high res versions of images of your choice, given their excuse would doubtless be that they're promoting you. I do notice they include your contact details, but... if they don't use 'em, who's to say their readers will either?? No, I'm sure proper companies would get in touch, if only because they'd need print-ready files rather than web ones.
I've had pictures used (for profit making companies) without my prior knowledge before, but they've made amends on the whole. You've just gotta catch them. Louise is on the case...
The spreads look lovely, though!
They put some of my stuff in there too! This isnt right and we should do something about it.
My stuff is in there as well. Darren over at LCS just informed me. I've contacted a few of my publishers since some of the work they stole and put in their book is owned by those publishers and not me.
I'm looking into this.
Jeff
I imagine the company that printed this has been and gone. At least the illustrators had a credit whereas Darren's interviews have no mention at all of the Little Chimp Society or Darren. It's scandalous.
I've had this happen a few times. Even found an artist who was altering my images from my website and repainting them. It's flattering in some respects but frightening. You always feel violated. It sucks when you start to consider putting badly shot photos on your site just to counteract the plagiarism.
Unfortunately there is also 2 full pages of my work in there too. Thanks for spotting the copyright enfringement Jonathan!
hi Jonathan! I've been meaning to thank you for being the first one to bring this to everyone's attention! I'm one of the artists whose work was used in this book too.
Here is an update!
http://apefluff.com/colorful-illustrations-93c-update-1/
I’m helping spread the word. I just blogged about this (with links if that's OK) and will pass on the info to a message board I visit. I hope, somehow, this will work out for all of you. I can imagine the frustration and anger you are going through. I've been there in a small way.
http://gailmakiwilson.blogspot.com/2008/04/its-ten-oclock-do-you-know-where-your.html
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