I just got a really nice email from Joe Wierenga that pretty much sums up the situation.

Below is copy of the email he has sent to the GAG
–
“To the Law Advocacy Group,

My name is Joe Wierenga. I am not a member of the Graphic Artist’s Guild, but my situation is certainly one that should be brought to the Guild’s attention. What has happened to me and 93 other artists is a huge concern for the entire visual arts community: things like this simply should not be able to happen.

Like nearly every other visual artist, I have a personal website featuring galleries of my work as a means of self promotion. I recently discovered that a book has been published without my knowledge featuring many illustrations stolen from my website. A line of text saying “Joseph Wierenga (c) 2007 All Rights Reserved” appears under every image on my website, but in spite of this the book’s publishers took the 72 dpi, 500 pixel tall images out of my gallery without ever telling me, and are selling them without my permission.

I am not alone. The book is called “Colorful Illustration 93*” and features stolen work from 93 different artists, most of whom are emerging young illustrators and designers. Every single image and line of text has been stolen from personal websites and blogs without a word to any of the creators. Worst of all, the book is tacitly set up like a stock illustration catalog and comes with a CD of files for every stolen image. Buyers might think they’re buying duty free usage of all the images along with the book; there’s a chance I could open a random magazine tomorrow and find my own illustrations looking back at me.

They found our websites through a web portal for illustrators called The Little Chimp Society. LCS is intended to be a portal for young artists to meet each other and share advice on each other’s work. LCS claims no ownership to any of the work featured by its members, and attribute full ownership to the artist. Many interviews and news posts made by the portal’s webmaster were also put in the book without permission. Last week a member of the portal happened across a copy of the book in a store and reported it to the LCS webmaster. He immediately contacted all of the illustrators and we are currently pursuing legal action.

We are not getting anywhere. The name of the publisher and the ISBN number given in the index are both fake. The phone number given is actually for an air filter company. The address of the Publishing House is in Hong Kong. The distributors are located in Japan and Spain, and are thus far being uncooperative in helping us locate the publisher. Unless we are able to track down the culprit, there seems to be no legal recourse available to us. And they have been very thorough in covering their tracks.

I am reporting the situation to you, even though I don’t know whether any of the 93 artists involved in this incident are members of the GAG, because every visual artist without exception is in danger of having this happen to them. Without being able to find the publisher to hold accountable, the law offers us no protection. Even if we are able to shut this operation down, there is nothing stopping others from doing the same thing. This baseless thievery could happen to anyone who has put their work, copyrighted or otherwise, anywhere on the internet. If one of the 93 artists had not happened across the book by chance, none of us would even know it ever happened. Something needs to be done.

I am not an expert on copyright law, but I am aware of the current political turmoil surrounding copyright and its application to the web–specifically internet piracy. What has happened here is Internet Piracy at its very worst. This situation is a clear example of how poorly the old law functions in the digital world. This says to me that the fight must be made to protect artist’s rights. I hope you see it the same way.

For your reference:
The web portal these publishers used to find their victims can be seen at http://thelittlechimpsociety.com/
The LCS webmaster’s blog, with news updates and further information can be seen at http://apefluff.com/
His name is Darren Di Lieto. He is the one organizing the charge against the publisher and can be contacted by email at (use the contact link at the top of the page)

Thank you for your time,

~Joe Wierenga“

Written by Darren Di Lieto - View Profile | Share This

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