Luc Latulippe

perhaps, if approached, they will give you some of the money.  and perhaps they are interested in future projects.  theft is, after all, the highest form of flattery.  regardless, you can feel proud that you have influenced another culture.

ps. i am broke, too.

You should contact a reputable intellectual property attorney right away. Ask them for an hour to discuss your situation at no charge. Show them whatever evidence you have that you are the author of the works, and that they were published without your permission.

Then ask them to take the case on a contingency basis. That means they work on your case without payment up front, but they will recover a fee if you recover damages from a settlement or a favorable verdict.

Attorneys get asked to work on contingency all the time, usually by people who have no case, or are outright loony. If you can show someone in an hour that you’re a) sane, b) responsible, and c) have a case, you might have a shot.

PAgent:
It’s a fake company in Hong Kong publishing books with fake ISBN numbers. Despite how crappy this is, not much real “damage” has been done. I doubt they’re raking in billions of dollars here. Plus, the artists affected are from all over the world. The type of legal team needed to address this is utterly beyond our scope. We’ll look into the legalities of it, but I can’t see much of a lawsuit here, unfortunately.

——

Jackquelyn:
Wow. Um. Jacquelyn, I know you’re trying to put a positive spin on things, and I appreciate that, but there are so many things wrong with what you said above, it’s almost frightening.

First of all, the expression you’re thinking of is: “imitation is the highest form of flattery” not “theft is the highest form of flattery.” Theft is a crime.

Second: plagiarism is theft. We’re not talking about the free exchange of information online, here. This publisher assembled, designed, and published a physical book, crammed full of plagiarized work and stolen content, in order to make a profit. Not because they’re nice people.

Third: the publisher is unreachable because they also used fake contact info, so suggesting we contact them in order to ask for money is not only out of the question, it’s, well… really bizarre. They’re not publishing this book out of the goodness of their hearts, or hoping to “send us some business” later, or cutting us all cheques after we discovered what they were up to. If they wanted to go through the usual channels, they’d have done that in the first place by contacting Darren at the start.

luc-
interesting perspective.
personally, i find that theft comes in a little higher on the scale, than flattery, but i am certain we can agree to differ.
perhaps a better suggestion would be to sell your book before, and better, than they do.  with the entire western civilization working towards facilitating the ease of such commerce, i am sure it would not be difficult.
your illustrations are indeed beautiful.

So theft is higher than flattery, and imitation is the highest form of flattery, AND theft is the highest form of flattery. Riiiight.

It’s empirically a crime to steal someone else’s work. There is NO room for argument or opinion or agreeing to differ here. It’s simply a fact that Luc’s work—and Darren’s, and everyone else’s—was ripped off, and the people who did it are hiding behind lies and falsehoods.

Taking credit for the results of someone else’s time and effort is not any form of flattery. It’s the highest form of insult.

do you really believe that copyright can apply to electronic media? Do you not download music illegally? do you not watch movies illegally?
Someone stole your ideas? like you should have to pay for ideas? ! !?!

@Mikey

Uh, copyright DOES apply to electronic media. You might want to look that up dood. Just because files are accessible in any way doesn’t mean they’re yours. If you leave your wallet in plain sight, does that make it mine to take? Hey, I saw it there! It’s not protected by copyright, right? Right on!

I’m not talking here about someone posting my work on a blog, or downloading it onto their desktop. If you were a frequent visitor here, you’d know that I actually encourage that. Yes: go ahead, freely distribute my work electronically. Just send me a friendly link back to my site. I even say so above where I clearly encourage readers to SHARE THIS POST. 

What I’m objecting to—and I’m amazed at how many times this needs explanation over the past two days—is that someone is selling my work and the work of over 90 other artists without ever having asked permission. FOR PROFIT. WE GET NOTHING.

I’m sure you can’t be bothered to read the post again, and I know you didn’t read it thoroughly in the first place, but I never said anything about someone “stealing my ideas.”

By the way, I’m coming over later to, uh, “borrow” your car. I’m sure you’ll be fine with that.

@Kostia Thank you :)

Every time I read comments on posts connected to plagiarism I get frightened how many people misunderstand copyright or creative commons or even what it means to simply download something.

Mikey, nobody prevents you from downloading this page just like nobody prevents people from swapping music files online (apparently). There is no such thing as “illegal watching of pictures” because the industry we belong to is not run by paranoid executives. However, the people who published this book did something profoundly different.

And flattery - if this is the ultimate flattery, we should ditch this profession altogether. It’s the highest form of insult indeed.

Amen brudder. :)

Maudit Fuckers.

Fake ISBN, fake company, fake addresses, makes me think of the Triad? Just my two cents.

Contact the resellers and ask them to remove the book from stock. If they don’t, publish their names and addresses and encourage people to boycott them. I certainly wouldn’t support a bookseller that sold books like this. Hit them where it hurts - their pocketbooks - and I’m sure they’ll get the message.

I’m curious about how the images look. If they are using images culled from the web aren’t they going to look awfully pixelated when printed?

Bummer.
Just a semantic issue… this is theft, certainly.  It doesn’t seem to be plagiarism, though, since they’re not claiming to have created the art, are they?  (Unless they are claiming to have conducted the interviews, unless it is totally plagiarism.)

I meant “...in which case, it is totally plagiarism”.

I felt it right in my guts when I read your article and I wish you the best of luck. What amazed me though was the lack of understanding that you and your fellow illustrators had been robbed.

Not out of love for your work, not because they couldn’t contact you, not even to share with their friends.

The work was stolen and published for greed and exploitation. They didn’t just ‘steal your ideas’ they stole the time, effort and reputation of the artists involved. A few years ago I saw my artwork on a dance party flier and was gutted that the person involved didn’t bother to ask.

Her response ended our friendship. She didn’t think it “such a big deal” as it was “only a picture”. In two careless phrases she showed that she put as much thought in to where the image came from as it took to blink at it.

You have my sympathies as your situation is much worse. You’ve been stolen from and deliberately misled by people with dishonest intentions. Like rats in the soil they’ve creeped back to wait for dark, I checked the Azur site you mentioned and it’s gone. What’s even worse for the Chinese, is that this kind of thing adds to their ‘rip-off nation reputation’ and puts a foul taint on the amazing legacy of China’s art and culture.

Sorry for the length of my rant… and good luck.

So, I have basically sent this out to over 50 places in the past 2 days from Art schools, forums, 10 facebook groups, illustrator friends of mine, teachers, member sites, blogs, etc. etc. In my small way I thought I would join in and throw this information around.  Any bit helps I guess. The whole thing has made me feel sick and extremely mad!

Hong Kong’s legal system is different from that of the rest of China. Its laws and legal system follow that of the UK, meaning you do stand a good chance of success if you do choose to take action against them.

In the last few months I’ve had my images used, without permission, for profit by third parties.

I was completely frustrated by the action itself, my lack of financially feasible recourse, and the disinterest of the companies (Stutterstock and Cafepress), whose lack of attention to these issues supports this kind of behavior.

In the end, I chalked both of my situations up to unfortunate, isolated incidents. But perhaps sticking my head in the sand was irresponsible of me. This kind of theft seems as though it’s only going to get easier to accomplish.

What can we do? Since the law doesn’t seem to provide us with any practicable options, I hope the collective efforts of the creative communities will provide some. Spreading the word through networking websites is a great start. I will certainly participate.

As an aside, I was amazed in my cases, and in this one, by the number of people who don’t understand actions such as these are theft. Straight up. Black and white. That said, educating people may be an important part of the battle here.

@ Chris L
Thanks for writing! The interviews that are in the book, were taken word-for-word from Darren’s blog. So, yes, that’s definitely plagiarism.

@ Jamie
Yes, they essentially used all the 72dpi images. If you shrink the physical size by half (say, from 6” wide to 3”) and at the same time you double the dpi to 144 or 200, you end up with a “faked” high-rez that’s still grainy but crisp enough to print. As you know, the usual dpi for a print image is 300. They would also have had to convert almost 1000 images from RGB to CMYK.

@ Simon
Thanks for sharing your story. I know exactly where you’re coming from. The best we can do is keep these dialogues going, and share information. The internet makes it easy for people to steal content, but it also makes it easy for the rest of us to get on top of things.

@ Holly
MWAH! Thank you! You rock our worlds!

@ Bizz
B’en oui, hostie! ;)

@ Everyone
Thanks for your comments!

Plagiarism is illegal, immoral, and ultimately a threat to these artists’ livelihood. However, I don’t think LCS and its contributors will experience anything but positive effects of this particular act.

“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 use every day — Twitter, Flickr, Delicious, Magnolia, Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook — to spread the word about this overpriced book full of plagiarized and stolen content. Feel free to quote us…”

Thanks to people like Holly, the story will spread, more people are going to find this link, check out LCS and read its content. I for one was very impressed with the material that was copyrighted (as seen from the scans) and am already looking forward to viewing what else is there. The same goes for Luc Latulippe’s blog.

This book isn’t on Amazon, it’s not searchable by ISBN, and it’s clearly not targeted to this market. Those who DO buy the book- well, I seriously hope what they read interests them and they try to find out more through Google. If they find information about a particular artist, great for the artist. If they find all of these outraged posts? Great for us.

I’m no means am I supporting plagiarism, but this sleazy reproduction by a 2-bit Hong Kong operation might turn out to be the best thing to happen to LCS and the artists it promotes.

Oh yeah- and I intent to tell all of my artist friend about all of this…

@ Jlahr
Thank you! You’re right, it’s not likely to make it into bookstores like Amazon, but we’ll be sending them a press release too, to ensure they don’t buy from these thieves.

@ Chad
So sorry to hear you were treated this way too. Did you post your story online? I’d love to hear about it, who the company was that stole your work, and what they’re selling. If you have that info, email it to me.

I am one of the lucky persons that Holly emailed, and for what it’s worth I am re-distributing this post on my blog, and a couple of forums.

I love your work, and I am happy to try and help.

Luc,

I’m so sorry to hear about this.  And I can’t imagine how anyone would NOT THINK IT"S WRONG! 

I’m going to send this around to everyone I know as well.

All the best.. And good luck.  Your work is amazing.

Jen

Get James Jean on the phone, I’m sure he has the legal resources to do something about this, yeah?

If you really wanna sue this person or people in general…and you haven’t got the moneys to do so you could always get a lawyer who doesn’t get paid until you do…hense win the case.

There are numerous pro-bono or reduced-fee legal organizations made up of lawyers who specialize in helping artist and non-profit groups. A friend of mine got free legal aid from one concerning copyright infringement in Australia. A good place to start might be vlany.org. They copuld refer you to other Volunteer Lawyer for the Arts organizations around the country. Good luck!

Hi Luc,
I feel for you and everyone else who’s work and interviews were stolen.  I’ve been afraid of something like this happening for a long time.  I wouldn’t be surprised if companies in India and China are creating vast stockpiles of work from the West for resale as stock art on the web in their own countries.  The fact that something is downloaded at 72 dpi will not stop people from stealing it and some people from buying it.  They want the images, they res it up, what’s a little fuzzy image quality to a thief?
Some of the comments on here are so off base.  If someone does not respect the work they produce and offer the industry, it’s no wonder they are “broke”.
Good luck tracking down and doing something about the people that did this.

Hi Luc,
I feel for you and everyone else whose work and interviews were stolen.  I’ve been afraid of something like this happening for a long time.  I wouldn’t be surprised if companies in India and China are creating vast stockpiles of work from the West for resale as stock art on the web in their own countries.  The fact that something is downloaded at 72 dpi will not stop people from stealing it and some people from buying it.  They want the images, they res it up, what’s a little fuzzy image quality to a thief?
Some of the comments on here are so off base.  If someone does not respect the work they produce and offer the industry, it’s no wonder they are “broke”.
Good luck tracking down and doing something about the people that did this.

Jeepers. You ain’t the first, son, but this is a pretty raw example. I’m so pissed about this, especially when the roots of the problem are so insidiously woven into everyday occurrence.

I don’t understand my friends who download music and movies and comics, and don’t realize they are creating a culture of acceptance for this kind of activity. It doesn’t just hurt some acronym of a company—it hurts actual people.

blogged:

http://www.immonen.ca/news/archives/963

Get your self a copy….. add it to your folio… its not often you find yourself published - bask in this unauthorized glory!!!!  The spin off reward for you may be far greater in the long run…..

Luc, Sorry this has happened. I blogged about it to spread the word. A drop in the bucket but hope it helps.

We all know this isn’t new but we can and should still fight it. A few years back there was a site that was selling rip off paintings. They had a factory of artists in China who would paint copies and then sell them as originals. Some artists found out and fought back in much the same ways you advocate. It did seem to have an effect, here is a link to the artist who spearheaded it:

http://www.painterskeys.com/clickbacks/arch-world/chinese-list.asp#list

If you scroll to the bottom, there is a horrifyingly long list of artist this site was ripping off.

To those who suggest looking for the silver lining by being happy to have been published or creating a show out of it to try to capitalize off your work being stolen: Its a nice sentiment but the fact of the matter is this is theft, period. The message that reaction sends is “by stealing from someone else I’m doing them a favor”. I realize this is not what you intended to imply but the end result will only be further justification as to why it is OK to rip someone off. The message these people get back should be “Don’t even think about it. If you steal my work, I will do everything I can to shut you down and/or make your life a living hell” with more than a few expletives thrown in for good measure; not “Golly Gee, thanks for helping me out!”

Actually, this sort of thing needs to be brought to your representatives attention. It’s a violation of trade regulation and artists should take political action to impose sanctions on imports. Artists need to get together and put some pressure on governments to stop this sort of thing - collectively it costs serious money. (Not including when this happens with drugs or food of course).

I know that some clients of mine have blocked china and other “pirate” rich nations from their sites - regularly updating block lists with entire IP prefixes, a very heavy handed approach. One fine-artist friend has a “transfer” agreement that fines any collector who transfers or transports her artwork to china. Another very heavy handed approach. But then people get pissed when your entire nation rips people off.

On a lighter note: Check out universities with law schools- Professors and students help out with cases a fair amount of the time and have “free advice” clinics for people.

Also, many lawyers give advice for free. If you have a good cause like this one and respect their time you can get a great deal of free assistance. Many are reluctant to commit to a full pro-bono trial, but will give a lot of valuable support up to it (and some will go all the way once they get to know you). Sometimes it takes a few calls but lawyers got into the business mostly to help people and are really sick of the cases they usually get so don’t be afraid to look for some free help. It’s out there.

Finally, you don’t have to buy into the “it takes billions of dollars to fight for your rights” stuff. It doesn’t. It DOES take time. Lots and lots of time. Oh and forms. Forests of them. But it isn’t as difficult as many would have you think. So it’s totally up to you to decide how much this is worth.

It may not be worth the time to you and that’s cool. You don’t HAVE to do anything. But it does suck.

i was alerted to this travesty this afternoon and at almost midnight i’m still obsessed with this whole knock-off book thing (i think of the situation like the knock-off LV bags and rolexes)  i wrote to my journalist friend to see if he thought the story might be of interest outside of our community.  he gave me some suggestions so i will try and put together a little brief tomorrow to send to bigger newspapers.  i’m also going to ask a japanese/english translator friend how much it might cost to translate a blog post into japanese and and then send a copy to the japanese distributors.
of course, i may be totally naive about the whole thing.  if someone went to that much trouble to publish a book with a fake ISBN, etc.  i mean, come on, illustration is such small potatoes in the world of subjects.  there then must be copyright infringing books being published on all kinds of subjects.  ...my head might explode.  i mean copying a fancy, mass market product - i get why that exists, it’s a luxury good that the regular person cannot afford, made cheap and accessible, an obvious way to make the illegal producer rich and the average wage earner feel special (if that’s what their into).  but this?  it’s like the opposite:  a very expensive, niche market book (isn’t the average price of an illustration book around $50?)  someone went to the trouble to produce a fake book that has a limited audience and is very expensive.  maybe in asia, illustration is more marketable than i thought.
really though, the whole situation is so insulting - as if freelancers don’t have enough to worry about.  and here i thought china was a country that has huge issues with “saving face”.

I feel for you, and hope that you’ll be able to get the story across enough for the books to be pulled off the bookshelfs hopefully.

As for preventing the company from copntinuing to steal, I’m afraid it’s impossible, as they have well proved by using fake info etc that they’ll just switch to a different company name if this one gets too dirty. (In fact, the name sounds so suspiscious that it’s probably already happened before.)
It’s a really depressing world. :(

I’m btw as shocked by the theft as I am by the total lack of morals and of logic of morons who insult you by commenting here to say that “theft is flattery” and “you should feel proud to have people stealing your art”. That type of way of thinking is precisely what creates thieves like that company in the first place.

Lastly, I understand your feeling of wanting to allow people to distribute your art on the net, but I think you’re doing yourself a lot of bad by doing so. Artists shouldn’t allow others to use their art without case by case permission.
I think it’s one of the major elements that gives off the impression to thieves that it’s okay to steal.
The real thieves like that company won’t stop at that anyway, but there’s a huge amount of otherwise “normal” people like that Jacquelyn who commented here and the girl who stole Simon’s picture, who just don’t realize that it’s “such a big deal”. I strongly think that as long as artists encourage people to use their art as they plase online, those people won’t understand that it stops there. It lowers the value of your art.

I’m a writer, not professionally, but I find this terrible and this is by far the most scalding example of plagiarism and theft I’ve seen in my life.  If this had happened to my works I’d be equally as distraught.  My thoughts are with you for something to happen and draw the light upon such an occurrence as this.

i think i am going to fight several of the people who have posted comments here.

Luc, it’s a dreadful situation and my heart goes out to you. i would feel emotionally raped if this happened to me…. my creative efforts are held very close to my heart. they had no right to do that to you, morally or legally.

guh, i meant to say my heart goes out to darren. reading comprehension, hello!

so, perhaps a good way to prevent this from happening to an online portfolio is to add one of those horrid watermarks over the image. but boy do i hate doing that.

wow - my comments must have come off sounding extremely hostile to have warranted such returned hostility here.  apologies, if so.  i guess i need to explain my meaning further. 

about ‘theft is the highest form of flattery’.  firstly, supposed to be clever.  i realize with increasing frequency that quite often i think i am clever, and only a few close friends actually think i am.  clever.  ok.  me not clever.

secondly, the statement derived from an actual theft that occurred to me, in mexico last year.  i had designed a tensile wind tunnel shade structure from some old scraps of roof netting, and was quite proud of it.  the town where i was, though, did not have any roof netting, as only the gringos in the seaside town could afford it, and the structure was stolen.  i was heartbroken, but realized i had not been using it (shipwreck rules) and hoped my design could live on and make more people comfortable, sustainably. 

i am not advocating the theft.  but you asked for advice, and after having dealings with asian people, i have some idea of the vast differences between the cultures.  not meaning that it is right to plagarize, but meaning that continued reiteration of how wrong it is, is, in my opinion, a western idea.  in my opinion, the only one who would benefit from a legal endeavor would be the lawyer.  there are other paths that could pave a better channel between you and your viewers.  paths that would help future artists as well.

and finally, i believe that every problem is its own solution.  so if people in china are eager to buy your work, then i think you should focus on the positive points of that.

i believe our world is too fragile right now to foster ill-will back and forth between cultures.  sometimes we should forgive and move on, perhaps do our best to change the playing field that created the situation in the first place.  (again, i should probably clarify, i am wondering, if channels were more open between china and us, those publishers could have contacted you directly.  as it is, i wonder if they were even allowed to access your site online, else why was there a demand?  if everyone could read your webpage, why publish it?)

incidentally, i think it is likely that the people did not know what the english text even said.  or what your copyright was.  do we know how/if things are copyrighted in china/hk?  the concept of copyright is a relatively recent western concept. 

again, just presenting my perspective.  good luck to you, and your endeavors.  peace.

sorry, ‘dealings with asian people’ meant, ‘having done business in asia’.  (upon reread i did not like the phrasing).

Wow, that is just disgusting… :(  It really throws into relief that copyright laws really only protect the people with the money to press charges on their own… and only if the theft occurs in a country that abides by the Berne Convention.  (I believe China does, but their compliance with it has historically been shoddy at best).

I hope that something comes of this.  I wish you the best of luck in all that you do.

Bonjour Luc,

An analog solution to the situation:
Let’s make a sticker that explain the situation.
Make that artwork available on the same sites that revealed the theft. Every individual can print as many as needed and lets glue them in every copies on the front page of the book.

Hi Luc,
I just read this awful thing about this crappy book. I happen to live in Barcelona, Spain, quite close to where the spanish distributor Index Book is located. I’ve planned to give them a call (or a visit) and find out if they are aware of what they’re selling and also to call Spanish Society of Illustrators to see if they can, at least, take legal actions and stop the distribution of the book in this country, do you agree?

Reposting this.

The international black market for intellectual property has done some good (see certain Thai revolutions during which the government couldn’t prevent DVD footage of government massacres from being distributed), but stuff like this is still immensely frustrating. Still more frustrating are some of the comments on this blog that seem to be seriously missing the point. This is just part of a larger trend in China’s exploitative global trade practices (for which the US seldom if ever calls them out through the WTO), and I’m uncertain what can be done about it on a scale that’s feasible for artists themselves.

Hopefully me reposting it will help, if only to get people aware of the fact that artists on the internet have a hell of a time getting acknowledgment for their work.

Yikes! It makes you want to go and add ugly watermarks to all your design work doesn’t it.

Once I had my radio stolen from my truck. It was a piece of crap radio, but I felt violated. Having your creative work stolen and sold is like having your child kidnapped and sold. Shame on them.

I’ll be sure to spread the word.

Actually, they also printed illustrations in the book that DID have watermarks on them. So, low-rez, RGB, and watermarked, doesn’t really matter.

I’m so sorry someone has done this to you. I will definitely post about this everywhere I can.

You say you don’t have the money for a lawyer, but I would STRONGLY suggest that you or whoever else has been ripped off contact your local “Lawyers for the Arts” organization and see if any reputable firm, perhaps a large firm, can assist you pro bono (i.e. for free).  There are a lot of lawyers who are interested in or collect art, and are interested in standing up for the rights of artists.  Moreover, this is the type of case that large firms would find quite palatable to deal with because artists are attractive pro bono clients to have (as opposed to, say, multiple murderers). 
I appreciate the effort you and the other artists are making to spread the word about this on the ‘net but I don’t know that shame is going to stop this practice. At least see what can be done legally for free.  Maybe a group of you could get together, there is strength in numbers, and like I said, I would be very surprised if there isn’t a law firm in NYC or somewhere similar that would take a case like this for the public good and the good publicity value.  Good luck.

Here’s some non-expensive solutions, I’m not sure if you’ve tried:
1) Send a cease and desist order first to any place selling it. This mostly applies to places physically stocking it.
2) Send a DMCA takedown for any/all webpages that contain the book and it’s content citing it’s a copyright infringement. This largely will only be noticed by only stores based in the US and maybe the UK, CA and AU, but it’s better than nothing.
3) Contact law enforcement.

#1 and #2 are usually enough to prevent it’s sale in any real market for the item. As for widespread piracy in non-english speaking countries, you may be out of luck. If it’s being printed and sold in China, you are out of luck. If mega corporations like Louis Vuitton and Microsoft can’t stop piracy of their products there, it’s a cold day in hell when someone does.

Take your copy of the book and make good-quality scans of all the pages.  Then compile into a PDF document and give it away for free on your web site/s as well as torrent sites.  The cows are already out of the barn and over the horizon…you might as well try to ruin any profits the crooks are trying to make.

Having just read this article I was disgusted. Theft is theft, people have no value for art (even when they say, “Wow, I wish I could do that) and think that a Monet or Frazetta can be whipped up in minutes.

Anyway, nothing really new to add to the discussion, but I have posted this thread on ALL the art forums and websites that I visit.

I think it’s time for watermarking.

This is just tatally crappy…. i will tell everyone i know….and i know some people in chinese publishing….

I noticed they have some computerarts magazine covers… they are a big beast maybe they will be happy to take these guys to court???

Too bad this sort of stuff happens so much across international borders as there isn’t really much that can be done about any individual case.

I would like to point out, though, that Chris L is correct about distinguishing between copyright infringement and plagiarism, with this case being copyright infringement and not plagiarism.

Conflating the two might seem to indicate that one only has a vague notion of US and international copyright law.  And appearing to have a limited understanding of nuance doesn’t help one’s ability to argue.

http://www.ncte.org/pubs/chron/highlights/122872.htm

This whole situation sounds very unpleasant and demoralising.  If you want people to pass this news item around on facebook groups, it would probably help if you created a group that people could join (then it would show up in the newsfeed for their friends).  I did a quick search and didn’t find anything existing.

There is a bright side.  Publicizing this incident will work for you.  People who’d never come to your blog before are showing up.. perhaps in small droves.. which gives you cache and who knows? Maybe some work?

I wonder if anyone has created a script that allows the user to put a watermark on the fly… so you don’t see it in the online version, but you do see it when you go to print (including printscreen).

This is a crap act. Youa re right to be enraged. I found out about it from Kara who wrote about it on redbubble.com.au
The good news about that is it has 50,000 members worldwide. If you build up enough internet steam over this something will happen. Use their weapon ‘the internet’ against them. Good luck guys!

All you really have to do is tell the Chinese government once this thing gains steam. 

The publisher will disappear into the night, his organs mysteriously showing up one day in a Shanghai operating room.

I just want to point out that although Hong Kong is a Chinese territory, it has a completely different system of government and it’s own very good legal system. If your copyright has been infringed in Hong Kong you have a very good chance of launching and winning a case. The legal system here is a descended from the British legal system, and in Hong Kong contracts are taken very seriously indeed, and the judiciary are independent from the from the government. You should definitely look into hiring a legal firm to a) track down the publisher and b) launch an action.

Hi Luc!
My name is Natascha. I’m illustrator. I live in Madrid and I’m member of APIM (the association of Ilustrators os Madrid) and FADIP (the Federation of associations of illustrators from Spain). I’ll post about this in my blog but I’ll inform the Association too to send the information to our members. Maybe you can give us the name of this spanish re-seller to know more about him.
This is a shame!

saw this book in barcelona in the macba bookshop few weeks ago (didn’t buy it though)
looks like it’s still on sale there
http://www.lacentral.com/9789889814205

I’ll make sure to send this out in my next newsletter and put it up on the site and blog. Probably do an update this week.

Sucks, but hopefully with enough support from the web, it can be resolved without you having to throw money at a bunch of lawyers.

I’d be up for a boycot of any distributor that knowingly pimps this sort of illegality.

Similalrly with any store or outlet that stocks it.

I work at a personal injury firm that operates solely on the basis of contingency work.  I can tell you that most people do not have their cases accepted.  Contingency lawyers only make money if they win.  The take is usually 1/3 of any recovery.  Therefore the cost of prosecuting a case must be carefully weighed against any potential winnings, and the odds of success.

You are in an ugly situation, as proving ownership is not at issue.  The problem is finding the responsible parties, and being able to enforce a decision against them.  It has been suggested that you go after the online and real-world retailers, and I think that’s right.  You might go after the web hosts as well.  If there is a artists union, I would call them and see if they know any lawyers who can draft the paperwork.  Sending cease and desists is a lot, A LOT! cheaper than trying to run down elusive pirate publishers in a country of more than a billion souls.

Totally agreeing with Vik M regarding making high res scans and throwing a PDF up on major torrent sites, then telling people where to get it. The content is all your property.
What you should do in addition to that is add a footnote to each page with your name and web address, and add your name to the appropriate places on the front/back covers and inside pages.
That way it’ll be less like a plagiarised book, and more like you just released a PDF version of the content you were hosting free in web-form.
Though I’m not entirely sure what agreements you made with the individual artists and if doing such a thing would break those agreements, so maybe it isn’t entirely feasible.
It also is playing in murky copyright territory, and won’t necessarily stop those people who are just browsing a book store from picking up a copy, so…

Anyway, it’s even on sale at MACBA? What the hell? I would’ve expected it little more scrupulous behaviour from such a well-renowned museum…

“(EDIT - April 20, 2008 - Several people have commented below saying this book is only copyright infringement and not plagiarism, but remember I said above that all of the book’s written content consists of interviews which Darren wrote, and which were lifted word-for-word from his website. That’s clearly plagiarism.)”

It would be plagiarism only if they claimed the interviews were by somebody other than Darren. (Which may be the case, for all I know, but you haven’t given any indication of that.) Plagiarism is a very specific offense: claiming somebody else’s words as your own without permission. Simply reprinting somebody else’s words without permission may be copyright infringement, but it isn’t plagiarism, not even if those words compose the entire body of the book.

My question would be whether this book is actually being bought by anybody other than outraged artists.

I’d suggest to chop their hands off… >:|
bastards!

Probably the only thing to be done is to spread the word, and report this to the US Trade Representative, who would probably be the guy who would lean on China to enforce IP rights.

You might also seek a lawyer who could send cease and desist letters to anyone found retailing the book in the US or other countries that take IP rights seriously.

I wonder if the bogus ISBN will help keep it out of the major distributors, which would make it less likely to show up at Borders/B&N/Amazon.

I’m not sure how you could avoid this in the future. At first I thought about suggesting that images be watermarked or marked with identifying text that can’t easily be removed, but that isn’t going to help if someone just sucks down a site and republishes it, especially if the content is credited but not paid for.

You may not have money to sue. You may not want to sue. However, I suggest that you check out Lawrence Lessig’s book FREE CULTURE. It might give you alternatives to standing up for yourself. You may even just talk to a legal mind. You never know who might take up your cause. I am sure that you are copyrighting everything now. Sorry to hear about your loss. Best of everything to you in the future.

@ Everyone

WOW! Thanks so much for your wonderfully kind and supportive words AND your actions! Keep blogging this news. It has spread to hundreds of social networks over the weekend and the news has generated thousands of replies and a great deal of interest.
<hr>

@ Artists in Spain

Yes, please do bring this to the attention of your local illustration associations. That would make a huge difference and would be very helpful! Thank you!
<hr>

@ Paraparalegal

Thanks for your input and for shining some legal light on the matter! It’s very much what I suspected, but great to hear from someone who knows!
<hr>

@ Shmuel

You are absolutely correct, it’s only plagiarism if someone else is assuming credit for the writing. <ins datetime=“2008-04-26T00:31:10+00:00”>And that’s exactly the case here: the book does not credit Darren as the author. The only two names associated with the book are “Bernadette J” and “Malcolm Lee.”</ins> (EDIT: removed direct quote as per request)

Sure smells like plagiarism to me, no?

Ok, i can see how this can damage that company, however even if the plan works and the companys name is trashed, whats to stop them in 2-3 years surfacing as say “Awesome talent inc” or somethingt and doing the same thing. remember they gave false details before, why not again. as long as they make a decent profit once, they will do it again.

im not saying this isnt pointless, its infuriating that they can get away with this. Why dont you get in touch with newspapers, tv shows such as watchdog. (UK program). Media would eat this information up and it would get mroe wellspread and as an added benfit, they are both free. not everyone uses the internet but a larger majority of people will ehar about it through other means.

It isnt fair that art can be stolen from the net. by all copyright laws because it is made available for public viewing it is automatically copyright to the creator of the piece.
im a musician personally, so i have a good understanding of copyright laws about any form of media. Art and music runs on the same principals for copyright, once it is made possible for anyone to access it through either purchase or for free, it is still copyright to the creator of the piece.

I want to see this company burn to the ground. if they dont make any profit then the case against is a sducess. but remember bookstores have the book and were selling long before it was found. they may have already made their profit. but that doesnt mean we should stop. if they make 10000 books at say $20 a piece, and they dont sell even 2000 of then, they make a loss. You cant always get a complete win, but if we can fight them down and make them lose money, and we continue to do this, they will drop the product.
this may be an ongoing battle for many years, i wish you luck.

It’s copyright infringement if they reproduce without permission. It’s infringement if they reproduce and claim it’s their own work. In this case it sounds like it could be both. Plagiarism isn’t unnecessarily illegal, just immoral and grounds for academic discipline (not just being failed, but being fired if you’re a professor…).

The big problem legally you face is that the people who would prosecute copyright infringement are being paid lots of money to prosecute patent infringement by companies who make things, which means the supply is of lawyers, which is already small, is being taken up by people with deep wallets, so you have to compete for their attention with, err, shallow wallets.

You have my sympathies.

I know of a large Canadian entertainment conglomerate that successfully orders impounded any Chinese knock-offs of their trade-mark properties and resells them. This hurts the thieves and provides the owners with product they did not have to pay to manufacture.

Of course, they have lawyers. Still, if you can take action to seize these publications it saves you the cost of printing and you can sell them as collectibles. Just a thought.

And it seems to me that while HK thieves are effectively beyond the law, various look Western book retailers are not. Cease and desist letters are not terribly expensive to issue and lawsuits are potentially lucrative.

I can relate with your situation, and it is a no win situation.  Who’s going to defend you?  Who is going to pay for the defense?  Oh, how about those travel expenses to China, where you will forced to travel there to defend yourself for their counter suit.  Oh - how about that accountant you have to secure to verify lost revenue, where will the copyright penalties and fines be paid?  Who will collect and account for your royalties on your behalf when foreign concerns are involved?  Let’s not even think about how many years this will involve without resolution or reward.  Not only is the artist ripped by a thief, they are ripped by more thieves if they decide to fight for their rights.

Have you posted this to http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3

My apologies to everyone in the last half of the comments, particularly is what I’m about to suggest was already suggested, but it’s late, and I need to get to bed.

You’ve got a good line-up of ideas going, like the Press Release to chain retailers, so they are familiar with the book, should they ever get approached about selling it.

You should also send those press releases to as many publishers as you can, particularly publishers that would print a book like that - this serves two functions. One is to just wave off mid to low level publishers that might find themselves in a position to publish the fake book in their territories. Two, and this is the good bit, correctly worded, the press release can act as a foot-in-the-door for you to actually get the book published.

The fake is demonstrative proof that someone thought it was good enough to print and others thought it good enough to sell.

Take that and add that you a) can provide better quality versions of the illustrations and b) make more content.

They’re making money off of your work, and while might not be able to fight it at this point, you’re, in a strange way, in a good position to get that work to make you a little money in the places they haven’t raided. Which in turn gives you more legal ground to go after them (a publisher ally that can fire off cease and desists on both party’s behalves, before going looking to sell the publishing rights in the fake’s old territories.)

But that’s getting ahead of the curve. First things first. Darren should see if he can get the book published himself.

Best of luck - I kept slipping in and out of the right pronoun (luc versus darren - I did mention it’s past my bedtime, right?), but you know what I mean.

I’m so sorry about all this. This things really stinks. You have my sympathies too.

I’m very VERY sorry to hear about you going through this. Its a shame the proper channels wern’t used(because i’m sure you’d love to have a book out featuring your art) and even worse you haven’t been compinsated…..

with that said. The funny thing about Art, Music, and Ideas and once their put out into the public… there no longer yours. I mean. they are yours because you created it…. but now there EVERYONES. there not everyone’s to profit off of. Thats B.S.

If nothin’ more. Be proud that your work is out there. And try to use this bad experience to further your career. Get a couple copies of this book to put in your resume. Steal them if possible because you really shouldn’t have to pay $100 for a book of your art.

- Ackshun
www.AsonofJack.com

Ok, you have very little money—I get that—but there are inexpensive and even free legal solutions.  Don’t pass them by.

The main thing you want is for a “cease and desist” letter to go out from a lawyer to the re-sellers.  This is a formal letter telling them that they are selling plagiarized material, and that as a result they are likely to be liable themselves (especially after they get the letter, because after that they can’t plead ignorance), and demanding that they stop. 

I know that the re-sellers are in other countries, but trust me, they don’t want to take a chance on (a) being sued (they don’t have to know that you can’t afford it) and/or (b) damaging their reputation with authors, publishers, buyers, etc.  The second part is particularly important because even if the re-sellers surmise that you can’t afford to sue them overseas, the web makes it very easy for you to (perfectly legally) damage their reputation by making public the fact that they deal in plagiarized goods. 

The other thing that the letter does is that it lends some authority to your claims (of authorship of the works of art, of the fact that they were not licensed to the publisher of the book) because now these claims are not coming from some artist that the re-seller has never heard of and who might be lying, crazy, or whatever, they are coming from a professional who is not likely to risk his or her reputation by making a false allegation.  You gain a lot of credibility this way.

So how do you get the letter out?  Your best option is to approach a lawyer or law firm (or several if needed), let them know the situation in a very brief nutshell, and ask if they would consider doing a letter on a *pro bono* basis (free).  After all, you’re not asking them to go to court for you, or even draft legal pleadings, just to write a letter.  Many large, reputable law firms do a certain amount of pro bono work each year, and if you’re lucky you might be able to snag a large firm with an international reputation who can put the fear into the re-sellers. 

Just as an example, I notice that you are in Toronto, and I would suggest trying Heenan Blaikie (Pierre Trudeau’s old law firm).  They have a Toronto office, they are a little artsy, and they do have an international rep.  I have no idea if they would go for it, but it’s worth talking to them.  I’m sure there are others who would be worth approaching as well.

If you can’t get the letter done pro bono, bear in mind that a cease and desist letter doesn’t cost all that much, even on a modest budget.  A couple hundred bucks might be a small price to get some payback in this situation.  And the great thing is that if other re-sellers turn up, the letter can be recycled at virtually no cost—you just change the name and address of the recipient.

After that, I would follow up by doing a search once in a while to see if the book is being re-sold by anyone else.  If so, as I said, you recycle the letter.  If you are vigilant enough you should be able to stop these schmucks from making any more money off the art they stole from you and they might even drop the book.  Will they stop stealing from others?—Nah.  But at least you can protect yourself.

Good luck.  Hope this helps.  Write if you have questions.

Oops, you USED to be in Toronto—my bad.  (BTW, if you do decide to try Heenan Blaikie, they have a Vancouver office as well.)

I think this is an awful think to have had happen.
  I’ve read about other artists having their work stolen. Their art. But to have a book made and sold without your permission of your art.
  It must have been a surprise to find out about it.
  I can repost this article at www.jazmaonline.com to help warm others about this.

Richard Vasseur
www.jazmaonline.com

My advice would be to make a PDf of the book and post that one on line, so everybody can download a free copy of the book. It’s not really legal, but a way to make them feel what you feel. Good luck!

As a retailer, I am appalled. We have not placed any orders for this and if we did I would be sending them right back, right now.

On the up side, I heard this was happening and checked it out and it led me to your site. I really like YOU’RE work and if you have any products like an “Art Of” book I would be proud to carry it.

I am really sad something like this happened, and although it’s not much, I will pass on this information on my youtube vlog about comics.

I hope you guys get your justice in the end.

Here is an update!

http://apefluff.com/colorful-illustrations-93c-update-1/

i wonder if you could raise the issue with the Society of Illustrators. . .see if they’ll make a stink about it. . .even if you aren’t a member, someone there might help spread the word that work is being stollen and that it could happen to anybody. .

www.societyillustrators.org

best of luck!

I hope that this won’t dissuade you and your fellow artists from continuing to share your work online. Hopefully the publicity generated will give you some positive exposure, and this situation won’t be ALL horrible awful suck.

You mention money regarding such a cross national scale,  I think, with all this info and obvious infringement, you may want to check out
http://www.vlany.org/ volunteer lawyers for the arts…, they may be able to help.
best of Luck.

I have made a post over on:
http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/azurbook.co.jp

With a little help we may be able to get this site marked red by Mcafee and possibly even taken down by other security entities.

It appears that azurbook.co.jp is a relativly new site with Netcraft anti-phishing toolbar giving it an extremely high risk rating.

@ Andrew

Thanks for taking some action, but we have no desire to take down anyone’s website unless we know for a fact that they might be complicit in the sale of this book. Besides, we have no authority in other countries when it comes to shutting down sites.

There’s still a lot that’s unclear to us about who’s who in all of this. The actual publisher has used false contact information. Index Books is only ONE of the many stores selling this book. And Darren has written an update on his blog clarifying that Azur Corp is in fact neither the publisher nor the distributor. This was a mistake made on Index Books’ site. Index has not corrected this error yet, nor have they agreed to pull the book.

Here’s Darren’s update:
http://apefluff.com/colorful-illustrations-93c-update-1/

Hey there! Just posted your blog post onto mine via the ‘share this’ feature. Probably not much but hopefully it will get a bit more support for this… Stupid thieves =X…. Hopefully it will all work out!

Cheers!

The Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts is an organization that gives free or low cost legal advice and aid to artists who cannot afford the high price of creative arts representation.

www.vlany.org

They helped me with a serious problem years ago when a publisher attempted to claim copyright and trademark rights in my work, and I recommended the VLA to another artist who was also able to get their rights reverted when the same publisher ripped them off.

Please give the VLA a try.

Well, look at the bright side…

You are being promoted!

that sucks, hope you can get a chance to sue them!

I wrote an e-mail to Index Books, and recevied this reply:

Be informed that we have removed this book from our website and we’re notgoing to sell it anymore. 
Isabel Lorente
Export Manager
www.indexbook.com
Phone: 0034 934545547 Fax: 0034 934548438

@LUC,
man, It is a frustrating situation - but it is a war to free information from the confines of currencies. You are shot, and man, I am fighting for you.
Knowingly, I chose a medium that has a physical original.

I’m helping spread the word. I just blogged about this (with links) and will pass on the info to a children’s writers & illustrators message board I visit. I hope, somehow, this will work out for you all. I feel for you. I can imagine the frustration and anger you are going through.

http://gailmakiwilson.blogspot.com/2008/04/its-ten-oclock-do-you-know-where-your.html

omFREAKIN god!!! I can’t believe that anyone would even argue to the people that completely thieved on ya! buncha bean counters.

Artists lives are based on ideas and the creations from their ideas… Hell even engineers are artists. they are just a bit more anal about guarding stuff.

I really am appalled that this may never be resolved for the people that have been compromised here.. Question: Do you know anyone at FOX or some other news/radio/tv affiliate that could get this story out? I say flood any market you can. Expose, punish and make an example of the behavior that may become the norm if it isn’t exposed.

go get em! Let me know what I can do besides repost on my blog.

Hi Luc, I write about designer toys and found your site as a result of researching this blatant thievery. Rather than post the scoop word-for-word from Darren’s blog, I’m using the story as the basis for a piece on copyright issues plaguing the art community. Can I pose you a thought regarding the (re)proposed Orphan Works act? I oppose the act for reasons to obvious to state in this little box, but how would you respond to this ‘devil’s advocate’ which relates back to the stolen book? “If the artists don’t spend their money and time registering every piece of art they’ve ever created, what argument will a U.S. court have with a Chinese publishing company that insists it did its research in China and found nothing?”

Please feel free to email me or post back here. I’ll take commentary from any readers who are artists too. Thanks in advance!

This is CRAZY and a real shame… living in the information age it’s SO EASY for anyone to do this, whether in China or not. The most frustrating thing is that it doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to do anything about it.

And it looks like the Jaquelyn portion of these comments have ended, but I was just as shocked when I read her ideas on the subject as when I read the article itself. For those of us who’s livelihood is our art, this is nothing but a slap in the face (all “flattery” aside).

Incidentally, a week or so ago an acquaintance of mine sent me an email that they had seen a piece of my work in a book called “The Book of Pure Inspiration” which immediately caught my attention because I do not recall granting permission for anyone to publish anything of mine in any book by that title. I even looked it up online and couldn’t find any matches for such a publication. Has anyone on here heard of that book? if so, I’d like to know some information on it. Please email me if you know.

thanks and best of luck,

Frank Stockton