Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

A lot of that view, in my belief, comes from the culture of their community.

Here at DOA among all our dolls, the only way of sharing your hard work and passion and talent (if you sew/paint/sculpt) is through photographs. In my opinion, that instantly makes the photos themselves much like a drawn painting or any other piece of art. There is simply no other way to represent your dolls to someone who is not physically there for you to share your doll with them.

Given that I assume this board you mentioned is probably a more straight art community, they would equate this to the girl taking scans of people's work and tracing that. It's a shame that simply because it's a photograph, that doesn't mean it's given the same respect as a scan though.

 

She claims that she is uing Obitus as a face and body reference. She said she had one obitsu and a few faceplates that she was modding.

She didn't say what face plates she had. Nor does she have pictures.

 

Just wanted to pop in to thank everyone for their support and kind words! I know it has gotten a little heated, but I've been really impressed with the tone of the debate here and on other sites. We need to keep the tone civil and factual in order to make our case to the wider public and be credible.

I've moved the story to my website and updated the content of my flickr account, mostly so it reads better, but added the screenshot of her last email and a "note" at the bottom of my intro.

http://www.blastmilk.com/dolls_toys/super_dollfie_bjd/mijn_me.php
http://www.flickr.com/photos/blastmilk/sets/72157619093901772/

Never give up, never surrender!

 

Obitsu's don't have faceplates. Never did.

 

I know that now. I didn't know that when she first told me she had faceplates for her obitsu. I don't know much about them.

I do have screen caps of her e-mail mentioning the faceplates. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post them here though.

 

Seeing as other people have been I'd say go for it if you want to... The mods can always remove it later anyways...

 

Thank you for keeping us updated! I agree we need to be as civil and factual as well. I look forward to hearing up dates from you and other artists/companies as well. ^_^

 

This is all so very disheartening, and I worry about the impact on the community at large. The gross misuse of owner photos and the blatant disregard for other artists really sets this woman apart, and brings a very sad reality to a discussion that had been, in the main, one of hypotheses.

My question to everyone is this: With these unfolding events, how have your feelings regarding sharing your images online changed? Will you be more careful of where your images are? Will you take them down? Not share the images you hold most dear?

I hate to think that this will destroy the great share of ideas and beautiful pics that we have in this hobby, but I can understand the protectiveness we all have of our own 'art' and our dolls. I know I would be enraged and horrified if I found myself in this situation, and it does make me contemplate how much I'm willing to share.

 

I'd continue to put my photos up, because I like sharing what I've got with others, and I hope others will too, because I enjoy seeing what other eyecandy other people have. :3 Of course, I'd like this mess to be resolved in a satisfactory manner, because then it'd give me and others, I'm sure, a greater sense of security in doing so.

 

I still don't think I would take my online images offline, but I'm definitely going to be more vigilant about enforcing my own artistic copyright. For example, if someone wants to use my photos to draw off of, I'll make sure to say that my pictures cannot be used for profit or, if made public, rightly credited.

I still don't think I could condone tracing, though..

 

Honestly, I have made all of my photos private in my photobucket and on my My Space. I am a bit nervous about leaving them on the boards. While I have had people ask to use my photos before for projects that are not for profit (not many because most are terrible lol), I now fear keeping them up. I want people to be able to look at them as I enjoy looking at other's photos, but I am just not so sure anymore.

EDIT: I deleted this because it is a bit out of context, thank you!

 

With these unfolding events, how have your feelings regarding sharing your images online changed? Will you be more careful of where your images are? Will you take them down? Not share the images you hold most dear?

I myself always tag my personal art pieces with a watermark--not that my works are worthy of stealing since I suck, but it never hurts to be cautious. And when I get my doll it's going to be watermarked too, right over the main bulk of the image and credited properly to the company of course. That's just because I'm paranoid like that though, and I always have been since I first learned about posting my things online.

For people that don't or otherwise can't water mark their images it's always a risk but I don't think there is any reason to really fear such things if you keep an eye out for thieves like this.

Oh...which reminds me. Has anyone brought up Tineye yet?

Hm...

To those of you that can't watermark your pictures and you want to do so: I think there are websites that can do it for you, but I have photoshop and if you have doll photographs you'd like watermarked for posting here or elsewhere, please feel free to shoot me a message with the image and I could do it for you if you'd like.

 

Things like this never really bring up much concern with my personal stuff being taken XD A friend had me watermarking images for a while but. I'm really too lazy to do it on everything.
Which makes me a bit thankful most of my stuff is... Mediocore at best lol.

However, working on any vector art right now makes me really careful to make sure I have the stock works links exactly right because if ones screwed up? Ugh considering I'm against what this women is doing I'd hate to seem like I'm doing just that. Ugh.

However, were my work taken? I'd probably be far more warry of posting things I'm more attached to. I'd be protecting things I hold more dear to me then, just as an 'incase it happens again' sort of thing.

 

I have to say during this I didn't even consider taking down any of my images or hesitating to post new ones in the future. I've had several of my drawings copied in the past and that hasn't made me pause much in posting new ones. I think if people take action like this and don't let people just get away with it then others who think of doing similar things will be the ones who pause. Whenever I've found work of mine copied or being claimed I've always let them know I don't appreciate it and so far I've had good results.

I think we should not be the ones who are afraid in cases like this. People like Mijn Schatje are the ones who should have the fear. They are the ones doing wrong by copying when we just want to share our photos of our dolls.


ETA: SilverSugar, I have actually been piecing apart her images and running different bits through TinEye recently to see if I can find where certain elements came from, but haven't come up with much yet.

 

Junkets - I feel the same way. I know I have heard a few people say they are thinking about making their work private. Also, now people may be scared to do any art with BJD's as the subject, for fear of being accused like Mijn, which would be a shame. I hope people can differentiate between taking someone's pictures, tracing, selling, and trying to hide it and creating art as a true homage to the hobby and the dolls. I personally will not change what I post. I am not a good photographer, so I don't have that to worry about, but I do sculpt and paint. While I wouldn't be happy if someone traced my faces (and I would be furious if they were making thousands for it and lying about it), I won't let that affect what I do. I think this will just make me sure to post very explicit rules about my work. Actually, I love vector art and when I have my my own dolls that I made done I would love to do some vector portraits of them. It's funny, I think if she ripped off someone else's vector art there would be no argument but some people think the fact that she took pictures and made it into something different (vectorizing it) makes it okay. This kind of stuff makes me fear for photographers more than anything. I guess some vector artists are so use to "images online are stock photos" mentality that they forget that these images are an art in their own right.

 

I'm considering putting a watermark as well as a logo or something on all my photos. it's kind of daunting, considering that I have 4 years worth of photos and roughly 500+ in my doll image directory to watermark from those past 4 years alone. X_X

 

To Piyoko: Ah, I guess that's to be expected as Tineye is still relatively new technology, but I'm glad people are trying it at least. Were you able to find anything though? I'd be doing more to help there, but being on dial up tends to make me limit such things. Images take forever to load and whatnot. *laugh*

 

I find this whole thing to be so sad and depressing. Why couldn't this person take her own pictures of dolls to use for her artwork? I wouldn't enjoy a piece I'd done that way. I'd always know it was stolen.

I'm not worried about my own pictures - I don't think they're arty enough for anyone to bother stealing them. And I have so many posted...it would be impossible to do anything about the ones posted. Going forward...I probably won't change anything, because I don't want watermarks on my pictures - I find them distracting. And I like sharing pictures and stories. I'd be depriving myself while trying to thwart some unknown person from taking my pictures. I'll just keep reminding myself that there isn't any reason for them to want them! :>)

 

I feel your pain with dial up. I was so happy to move to somewhere that wasn't our only option! Haven't found anything yet, but I run images through there first just to try. I've been mostly manually looking things up through google/istockphoto/flickr/whereever ^_^;; I've had mixed results with that method and its veeeeery slow.


Actually~ Several people say this image http://www.artistaday.com/wp-content/uploads/mijnschatje_2343423.jpg is an AIL doll, but so far I haven't found a matching one. Anyone here recognize the face? This one was used in a tutorial for her method of working so I'd really like to find the original if possible.

 

I think that those of us with more usual dolls won't really worry. Please don't yell... just let me make my point in a very round about way.

Those that create unusual and unique works will probably remove all photographs from the web incase that their work is stolen. While I love my dolls, they are not that unusual nor am I that good with photography yet. But if I had... I would post to a friends list only secure location. I'd also see if I could ensure that no one could save/download that picture.

This could make our lovely open hobby a little less tolerant and less open to new people. I hope not.