Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

I don't want to rinse repeat but to summarise the main reason I disagree with what this woman is doing is this (as there are a lot of people who seem to be missing soem major points):

She is making $1000 from other people's work.

Imagine yourself, after spending years of your life getting your doll together, spending hundreds of dollars on the doll, it's wigs, it's eyes and clothes. You get all your expensive (or average) photography stuff out and spend over 5 hours taking beautiful photos of your doll. You consider these photos to be your own artwork you thought about composition, lighting etc and are considering asking the company if you can make a book/print posters.

Only to go online and find someone has taken your picture, traced over it without changing some very individual characteristics and is selling it for $1000. All your hard work and your investment is making someone else money.

The internet is =/= to stock images. People seem to forget that.

I find this no different from someone coming into your house and stealing your belongings then selling them on the market. What would you do if you saw your ooak football trophy on a market with a £100 price tag? Would you walk by knowing that it is yours and has been stolen? or alert the authorities?

You get my drift. Copyright infringement is there for a reason.

I know if someone traced any of my art, be it photo or drawn and ere selling it for profit I would definatley do all in my power to stop them. I don't make money off my own art so I will not just sit and let other people do it.

 

Oizys you make a good point and I bolded and capitalized the post that has the link in on the top of page 16 so it can catch other people's eyes more easily.

I am a bit sadden by the people offended that we are offended. I am grateful to everyone here and if it was one of my images or ideas I would thank god that some people care enough to stand up for what is right and for my work. (none of my images were used, but I care deeply about my academic writing and fictional writings and I can only imagine how it feels to be plagiarized)

 

Mjin used a piece of art that she traced from Blastmilk's Soah with a deal with Playstation. (And she did this fourteen months prior to emailing Blastmilk asking to draw more of her dolls.)

This isn't just paltry prints people, this is actual big bucks she's making her. She released a line with Fornarina clothes Spring 2008 with pictures of Volks Liz/Mai on it. (Again traced from photos taken by Blastmilk.)

How would you feel if someone used your pictures of your dolls to make money and you never even knew or saw a cent of it?

 

People are seriously arguing that this isn't a debate? What isn't there to debate about? There is a serious argument here that it is her real art, or if it's a complete copy. Those who go to college for art, and are in art classes, are forced to copy things all the time for their grade. But the trick in that is; You're supposed to citate your work.

Clearly, she copied someone else's work, and is making 1000 dollars a print off of it. This is without citation, and she denies all accusations against her.

Not only is she copying, but shes tracing. That is completely wrong. If you like the style of something and want to remember it, print the dang picture and put it on your wall. Don't trace it, claim it to be yours, then sell it for a large profit! Anyone who disagrees with me; please, enlighten me with your thoughts on the matter.

Also- there are many people who are getting frustrated with the topic. If you don't want to know, or you're sick of it- why are you posting? Negative comments about the topic on the thread about the topic aren't really necessary, thank you.

How would you feel if someone just took a picture of your doll; something that you customized and created-and then took a beautiful photo of; and traced it? Then they added some grass and clip art, then sold it for a thousand bucks?

Her so called "art" is nothing but a bunch of other artists work pasted together. As stated before, if she called herself a "graphic-collage" artist, then there wouldn't be AS MUCH of a problem. But the fact that she denies everything makes her a complete fraud.

One last thing; she's contradicting herself. First, she claims she got permission to use the photo from her friend. Then, she claims that she had permission to use all photos. Then, she claims to have never heard of BJDs before! Then finally, she claims that her work inspired others to buy the dolls they were based on! (How someone could buy a doll without citation of the sculpt, I've yet to figure out).

That's just a summary of about all I've read and my opinion on it. >.> I really hope this woman gets stopped soon.

 

Wow. I mean I knew she was making a lot of money off of this but seeing as this was when I first heard of her I hadn't a clue how... Far this had gone till now. Holy. Crap.
I... Wow. Ow. Something.

The thing about her saying "The people I've talked to my works about, some have gone and bought dolls and sent me pictures of them to use" or you know, whatever she said exactly... I just wonder why did she have to take others pictures then? I mean she has all these people (some of which (2?) we have heard from saying indeed, they exist and agreed!) giving her pictures and what not. So what's the use of stealing? Why would she need to?
I'm guessing because... The two we've heard from, are it.
Glad to see the accurate match ups on some of the images on the website though! The one I questioned I no longer do. Looks spot on to me now.

 

nadja, I'm not sure what "cease and desist" means, but the idea that legal actions should be take is right. It's sad when things like bootlegging happen to the people who created the masterpiece in the first place, because they should be enjoying their work instead of on the lookout for ripe-offs from them.

 

"cease and desist" pretty much means stop what you are doing right now and don't start doing it ever again.

ETA: In this case it would mean that she has to stop using the specific image in her art and not use it again.

 

I wish it would not only be a cease and desist, but pay out royalties of what she has already sold to the companies and photographers she stole from... I am bothered at the thought of her being able to keep all the money she has already made... She should also be in deep water from the companies who have bought her images because she has deceived them, and now they'll be the ones with the bad rep, eating everything they've already produced because they can no longer sell it.

 

Agreed. Fully agreed. But I always think in matters like this. You stole, you made money, well now you owe that money to the people who own the works you took.
If she then wants to do her own ORIGINAL works under another totally different name that's fine. If I like it I might even support it! So long as its hers and not stolen from someone.

 

She took photos from my friends. She lied to them as to what she was going to do with them. She got money from Sony and fashion designers and arts schools and galleries for that. What about the stress and pain they are going through now? Do any of you who are defending this person who defrauded the art world consider the pain of the people who worked hard to make the dolls you buy? Or the individuals who took those dolls, loved them, made them their own, took time taking beautiful photographs, edited them and put them on the internet so people could also enjoy and be made happy seeing their dolls?

What about their pain?

It's funny how the people defending this woman are the only ones claiming this is no longer a debate, ect. This woman was being compared to people like Mark Ryden. If Mark Ryden or another artist of his level did this, it would be all over the place.

There are two important issues here that do deserve this discussion. One is the defrauding of the public by artists who do not disclose how they create their work. The other is the taking of someone else's doll photos and using it to make money. It happens alot and it is important to talk about what this woman has done because it is one example of it. I think almost everyone who has a doll, took a photo of it and shared it will agree, it would hurt to see that someone took that photo and was making money off of it.

 

I wonder why she didn't just buy her own doll? She could have used it for a model, and if she is that savvy with computers it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to change it enough that it would not be recognizable as any given mold/company.

 

It is a good question. Though judging by her pictures (I'm not gonna say she's bad here!) it doesn't seem her style. Either because she can't get the proportions right by alterting/adding or she doesn't like to/hasn't thought of it.
It can't be because she can't afford one.
Changing a faceup and using the same doll as a base over and over wouldn't seem that hard either and if she owned it, well it's hers and I doubt any of us would be hurt by it.

Lol. Maybe she just doesn't know where to get one! I'm sorry but for some reason the idea amuses me a lot. Nothing against her as a person there either its just. So silly sounding to me.
Probably because she's been in contact with people who own them.
That has to be it.

Speaking of. The people who allowed her to use their dolls, plus her having her own she'd have plenty to use the features of... Why didn't she do that?

I kinda wanna ask her.
I don't wanna come off as attacking though.

 

Well I've already sent the image with the shoe to the Lisa Frank legal department. I've sent the image with the jellyfish to both Scott Thom and William Gilbert to find out if she stole that image from them. While you folks look over her work for more stolen doll images, I'll be looking for other stolen things.

I don't think this is going to end well for her. When the story broke that Emily Strange was ripped off, it didn't end well for the thief there either.

 

*claps* I'd help but, I sadly do not know enough of the art or the style to even begin to be useful.
And I'd rather not be a hindrance >.<

I don't know about anyone else but I'd love to have updates when/if you hear back as to if the pieces are stolen as well or not.

 

You obviously have not read at all what she is doing. Mijne steals someones image, traces it, paints it on an art programme, then sells is for a thousand dollars!

I read the whole RadioTrash thing about Mijne the other day after a friend brought it to my attention and I was absolutely stunned at the bare-faced shameless audacity of this "artist".

Obviously she isn't the first person to do this sort of thing (happens to my friend Rion Vernon all the time) and won't be the last- but she should certainly fnd herself prosecuted and stop doing it.

 

The thing that sucks is, I really want to be able to like Mijn's work. It's lovely, in my opinion, but whenever I look at it, I just see stolen images, stolen work, stolen ideas. It's unfair to everyone involved...it's almost like a stealing of innocence and when her true fans do find out about their artist being a thief, it'll be so disenchanting. The surest sign of her guilt is that she won't let the images with their original images be posted on her Facebook wall. It's sad, really.

 

Two images of hers use a tiger and ribbon rainbows along side the dolls. The tiger has been identified as yet another photograph, traced digitally. It is suspected that the photograph is a royalty free stock photo. The page it came from is in French.

eta: to be honest, when i first viewed her work due to all this, all i really saw was a pretty good color pallet, and the same old 'trendy' vector crap. ): my job must have jaded me as to what's cool. heck, even the pallet can be swooped off of kuler.com.

 

If you do find the shoe or jellyfish I'd be interested to see them. Since she's been proven to trace the tiger in her images as well http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/RayeRaye/Untitled-1.jpg

What bugs me the most now about this is she has tutorials for how she creates her works and they show blank computer canvases. Her interviews make it sound like she thinks it all up on her own. Before this she made no mention of referencing her friends' dolls or anything else, but now she is tracing nearly everything in her images? Permission and stock images or not this doesn't seem to be worthy of the acclaim she is getting as an artist since she's been sneaking around keeping the fact its traced hush hush.

 

For all the people who have said that going public about this has done nothing and that it will do nothing:

1. Going public and spreading the word has forced her hand to admit that she uses these doll photos, when originally she said she has never seen doll photos similar to her art.

2. There is now increased chances of finding source photos to her pieces with more people on the look out.

3. One less person buying her art or one less person tattooing her art onto their body = Can only be good.

4. It might force the hand of galleries (because honestly, the cynic in me says that if there isn't public attention on it, the galleries would rather keep quiet and save their money than to out her)

5. More people know, so more people are out there contacting other companies that might be affected (Thanks, Victoria Victrix!)

6. Hey, at least she's taking down Blastmilk's art on her website. I think she should definitely do more and owes Blastmilk a lot more, but that's something at least.

7. People know the truth.


Did I miss out anything?

As I'm told elsewhere that I'm ruining her life and reputation by talking about this and it seems to be a question addressed here in the form of how we're all going too far, let me ask then:
How is it that she's tracing and selling work without permission and credit, but we're the bad guys for talking about it?


Edit: She even needs to trace her tigers, yo.

 

Has anyone made the "Mijn Schatje is an art thief" Facebook group yet? I would like to join it, if there is one.