Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

Exactly. The fact that she contacted them means absolutely nothing right now.

@mclamm7:I think that if she were to use only photos of her own dolls and also acknowledge what they were and the company that made them *somewhere*, then it would be fine. There are other people who sell prints of their dolls, and they take the time to do this as far as I know. In my opinion, once one buys a doll, one has the right to do with it as one wishes, including selling photos they ahve taken of it, EXCEPT to claim the doll itself as one's own personal work, especially if said person is going to be selling prints of their doll and AS LONG AS the items are not being mass produced. A simple "X is a(n) Y doll by Z company" would be sufficient (for me, at least). It might also be a good idea to make sure the company was okay with doing this if the images were being used in promotional material or on clothing, as in this case. Actually, not using traced images in promo items and clothing AT ALL would be better.
To start making good on what she's done, she needs to come clean about her theft and lies, STOP using stolen images immediately, have all stolen images pulled from any place they might be being sold or displayed and issue a public apology for her theft and deceit. Giving those she has stolen from some sort of compensation for what she has used would also go a long way toward her redeeming herself, I think.
ETA: She also needs to acknowledge any and all clip art and stock images she has used/stolen. Doll owners and companies are not the only victims here.

 

The history of copying a famous artwork was and sometimes is still used as a teaching tool. But it is only used to learn how to do something. Drawing famous sculptures was and is considered a good thing in school. It how you can learn the correct proportions and etc.
If you were to sell them... it would be considered a forgery (if excellant AND SOLD AS THE ORIGINAL) and you would be in hot water with the law.

I know that collage artists (real ones) have a real headache with copyright laws and trying to give notice of photographs/images used.

This gal on the other hand should reference the models at the very least (and ask permission). CHeck out deviant art at anything that has a human model and you WILL see model credit (as well as makeup and hair and clothes).

 

Seconded. Recently, a company I work with pulled a major, major faux pas. It was a marketing blunder of the first order, an incredible lack of taste, unbelievable levels of cultural and social insensitivity, and was just tacky and crass beyond words. They got called on it. Had they said, "We're sorry, we realized this was a very bad idea, and didn't intend to hurt anyone," they would have been forgiven pretty quickly. (It isn't their first blunder, won't be their last, and they've been forgiven bits of stupid before.) It was when they pulled an, "Aww, shucks, darn, we silly little people over here in <place> had no idea about that <global news issue> and never even thought about how these things could be connected!" that it really hit the fan, because the connection was obvious to everyone and their dog.

This approach may bring her some temporary news coverage, but this reaction? Long term, it is NOT going to make companies who license her work more inclined to do business with her. When your livelihood relies on someone being forthright in the images they supply, when they prove they are less than honest and -aren't- doing everything they can to correct it and instead 'aww, shucks, darn'ing their way through? Yeah, you can bet I wouldn't do business with that person again. "Aw, shucks, darn," wouldn't save -me- from a lawsuit, after all.

 

I think what weirds me out is seeing the way Mijn Schatje has appropriated the ABJD aesthetic and appears to be to telling the fine-art world, the world of galleries and chic street art, that she invented it.

It's not only the very obvious unattributed use of specific individual photographs - although this bothers me very much. It's the "I'm cool like Andy Warhol" wannabe appropriative art practices, the ironic "citation" of ABJD artistic conventions and ideas, paired--in this totally paradoxical, contradictory way--with claims to originality and authenticity.

You can see that her work is "citational"--it's full of clip art, stock photos, etc. But her earlier remarks, and her website promo, imply that she CREATED the aesthetic informing her work, and the mainstream art community seems to have bought it.

ABJDs walk an uncanny line, aesthetically, that is unmistakeable once you see the dolls themselves. Yet Mijn Schatje's own website represents her images as fresh, unique dispatches from her own imagination.

It's a shame. I would like to see more fine artists explore AJBD works, and the ABJD aesthetic, in a way that was less cynical and exploitive.

 

If it hasn't been done already, I'd like to take this into Deviantart and make it a News article featuring all the comparisons and what knowledge there is on the Radiotrash site for Mijn. However I am not quite the best writer in the world.

So would anyone like to take this up? It will get quite a lot of publicity, and I would freely advertise on my own personal art site. If not, I'll go ahead and make one, but I just simply don't feel eloquent enough to make a written impact.

 

please,please PLEASE do! I am fairly sure this has not been done yet, and it would be a great help. I don't think you'd need anything terribly eloquent, just a little something about the situation and the link to radiotrash's site so that people can see what is happening. Adding the comparison of some of the other images she has stolen, like that tiger, might also be helpful.

 

I have a very good French art student friend and she's not heard of Mijn. But, then, she's not interested in in BJDs.

If that isn't the pot calling the tea kettle black, I don't know what is.

As somebody that used to write professionally, I am used to analyzing my writing styles and those of my colleagues for critical purposes. Just using no spaces and writing in lower case letters does not make your 'voice' any different, no matter what name you're logged in under.

Your written English is truly fabulous. However, no matter how you try to cover it, your English always has the same idiosyncrasies. drawntogether, rottenpony, future junior account holder; you can't disguise your voice.

As for Sony, Luts, and Volks; if there's anything I know about creating policies it is that big business never lets something like this go, no matter how small, because it sets a precedent for their own copyrighted material to be lifted. Legally, Mijn will be nailed to the wall, but not because Sony cares about artists that got ripped off. Mijn will be nailed because of a multinational conglomerate wants to protect itself from bigger companies that will do the same thing if they let this go.

Mijn's best hope, at this point, is to come clean. Admitting her transgression and doing some sort of reparation will do a lot to help her. The more active she is in trying to make ammends will make her legal case less severe.

 

I noticed several people pointing out the Mona Lisa as an example of a derivative use of a recognized peice of art work.
In the example of that the artists in question are doing parody peices and can get away with it in most cases parody may qualify as fair use only if it draws upon the original composition to make humorous or ironic commentary about that same composition.

Even then it sometimes does not work as in the case of the Strawberry shortcake images that were redrawn more bdsm in style and which Hallmark quickly squelched.

I have'nt bought Amy Brown art since I found out she was copying others art, same for another artist that I caught back when she started out as well, I certainly won't be buying any prints of this artist and will make sure that I pass along what has been going on.

I started out as a graphic artist and illustrator and I've had to fight for my works before and frankly this whole thing just sucks for those involved as it's a long drawn out fight between all parties with a LOT of money involved.

I know in one of the images I saw, and someone else mentioned it as well, Totoro from Studio Gibli. The Totoro image is in the background but it is very recognizable as Totoro.

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...org.mozilla:en-US:official&sa=N&start=72&um=1

I know as an artist I want my work to be something I have created, something that I formed out of my own imagination and then put onto paper or digitally created but MINE and not traced and stolen from someone else's work and livelihood.

 

If she's getting thousands of dollars for prints and paintings I sincerely doubt she cares what we think.

Honestly nothing short of an international copyright lawyer could help clear this up.

As much as it sucks she may not be guilty of anything other than an inability to draw her own heads. It will really be up to the photographers at the individuals and companies, which art she's traced, to pursue this.

I know I'd be pretty angery if it was MY photo she'd taken but barring legal action from the copyright holders of the photos there really isn't anything to be done. And again, a court could find her innocent if they felt the work was original.

 

If she sell's that image with Totoro in it. That will cause a lawsuit. I'm sure Stufio Gibli would go after her if they know. Afterall they have a product liscensing line of figures, stationary, etc.
Wow... she just added to it, didn't she?

 

Oh yeah, that's 100% obviously a Totoro. That makes me sad because I respect Miyazaki and Ghibli so much, and she's making money off of their creations. Double sad.

 

I also recall that some of her shoes, hot air balloons, and flamingos were supposedly taken from Lisa Frank, as well.

 

They didn't require anything. Remember, my book was the first BJD book published in the US, so they may have some type of requirements now. I simply contacted every company that was represented in my photographs, explained my project, and asked them if they would give me permission to use MY photographs of DOLLS I OWNED. I told them that the dolls would be identified and the companies credited in the book. I sent them a preliminary copy (that I had printed on demand at lulu so they could see a prototype) which showed the pages where the dolls were identified, and the credit page which listed each company and their website. Then I also thanked each person by name from each company in the book for their help. And finally I sent each company five copies of the final published book.

One of the companies did specify the use would be OK for the book, but not commercial use.

They didn't ask me for any of it, because I had already done it in advance.

I have to say that all of them were very, very nice and were also very helpful. The only company I did not include of dolls I own was Volks. I had a very hard time contacting them, and when I finally did they had so many questions and requirements that for the sake of time I simply deleted the pictures of my Volks doll from the book. Although my understanding is that they rarely give permission for this type of project anyway. But even they were polite, etc.

The thing is, if Ms. Schatji had simply asked people in advance she could have avoided this whole big mess. Then people would have had a choice as to whether or not they wanted their dolls or images used. One reason I contacted all the companies, whether it was necessary or not, was that I did not want to use a doll if the company preferred that I not use it.

I actually had my art used without permission (but in a commercial way) and it really angered me. I had been doing illustrations for a magazine and stopped because I disliked the art director. He was fired, and when he left took a bunch of files with him- including my artwork, which he then used without my permission on some logos (labels, branding stuff, etc.) for a preserves company. He told me way after the fact, and offered me a free page on his online gallery (big whoop). I was angered because I wanted nothing to do with him- and certainly did not want him using my art NOR did I want to be on his stupid website (as payment).

I told him he had to pay me for the use or take the artwork off. I fought him for several months about it, during which time he became abusive and sent me nasty emails. Finally, several months later I got a check in the mail- no letter, no explanation, just a check. I suspect the whole matter had come to the attention of his lawyers who explained that using intellectual property without permission for commercial use had, at that time, I think about a $5000 fine (not sure on the amount- it was years ago).

Anyway- it made me sensitive to the fact that legal matters aside- I never wanted to involve anyone in one of my projects without their blessing.

 

Some of her other background images look like things I know too but I can't put my finger on them and it's really bugging me.
I'm hunting the net now trying to figure it out.

 

Lowbrow Art Gallery Kochxbos in Amsterdam is exhibiting/selling all of Mijn Schatje's 'Art' at the moment!....I thought M Schatje withdrew from sale the pictures featuring Kallisti's doll ?....... Kochxbos has catalogues and 'Arteest' signed posters too!!.....this stinks....

xen

 

It looks like she is a "clip-art" artist. And I mean artist is the loosest sense of the term. She uses others images and modifies them (reduces/enlarges, colors, etc) and then pastes them all together.

 

Once again green_judy, you found the word I was looking for. Exploitive!

That's exactly what it is. And the idea Ms. Mijn seems to have that we should feel grateful to her for exploiting us is a lot of angry words that the filter here would surely eat, so I can't share them :X. Please fill in the blank as angrily as possible.

 

It would be very beneficial to track down as many of these non-bjd elements as possible, especially to prove art theft beyond the BJD centered image. Companies or galleries may be forgiving if it is only one element of the composution, but if they see that every single element is not original (as I suspect will be the case, judging from all I have read here and examples like the tiger overlay), they will be much more likely to discontinue business with her.

 

Yeah the other finds of stolen images had me looking harder. I do indeed know some of the background images. But with my little knowledge of obscure strange art its very hard to google things. At least I'm mostly remembering the titles of what I think it's from though!

Okay. Yeah this is hard. Cause it's mostly random things from animes and stuff that you may see once ever and. Yeah. I really could be wrong on these.

 

When I was an illustration teacher at art school, in one quarter alone we had to fire another teacher and expel a student for tracing (in the pre-photoshop days) . When using photographic reference we taught that the artist must freehand while looking at the photo for information only, and even then the resulting artwork must be unrecognizable as being based someone else's photo. When I illustrated for Hallmark, if I had based a design on copyrighted imagery or failed to obtain a release, my bosses would have gone ballistic and called the lawyers. Likely her commercial clients will be not at all amused.