Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

She's obviously planning to reword everything we're saying to look innocent to her adoring fans :/ What a shameless creep.

 

What a long tl;dr of LIES. Her works match up EXACTLY to company stock photos and photos from private collection of individuals - many of whom have already replied back stating that she has never received permission from them to use their photos/dolls as subjects to tracing and then profit.

All 22 and counting samples just "magically" lined up nearly 100% with "unrelated" doll photos? Yeah, try harder Mijn. She and her "friends" who provided her with photos should probably start preparing for some rough seas with legal battles galore, as several companies have already posted their resolve to get to the root of the issue. Additionally, she seems to be pretty conflicted on the origins of her art, seeing how not such a long time ago, her paintings were a representation of the imaginary world in her head, and she's never ever heard of the existence of BJD's.

And you know, even if she was honest and forward with her tracing from the start, and did get permission, I don't see how that would be art. From my limited knowledge of the art world, isn't any kind of tracing sort of frowned upon? Unless presented as a manipulation of the original photo and added on some, but then it becomes an entirely different kind of art from drawing/painting.

 

Then how does she explain the fact that Pipos, Volks, Luts and Blue Fairy all had no clue that she was using their photos?

 

But this isn't the matter of 'despising' her work at all. o____O

It's blatant theft stealing from company stock photos and from other owners and then claiming the work as her's. How does that relate to whether or not you like her artwork?

And besides, do the doll owners listed know?

 

firefly5003 - She said more or less the same thing to me, she's been emailing me since I posted about her on my LJ. The thing is, she has no proof of these pictures she'd used. If someone was really serious about their art and were using pictures from their friends as 'references' don't you think they'd be kept in a folder on a hardrive somewhere? And the fact that she's not coming out and actually showing people and proving the existence of these 'references' and just talking about them is just so unconvincing. If she was really serious about proving innocence, I would have thought she would have thrown all these apparently permitted pictures in everyone's faces by now.

 

Radiotrash, thankyou so much for being so proactive on this I feel warmed by the thought I am part of a comunity that looks out for each other when needed

I did have a little giggle at Luts response asking if they could use the images you provided them and credit whoever made them At least they have got the right idea!

 

I'm blown by this too...She seems to be talented as far as what she's added on to the surroundings of these faces, but yes, it's really annoying me I'm also reconizing all of the head /doll molds.

 

Has anyone contacted the museum in Naples where her current exhibit is? I can only hope they'd remove her from the exhibit when presented with such obvious examples of plagiarism.

 

So...I'm a bit confused now.... is this girl selling those particular overpaints as prints? Or is her actual, sellable, published work different...? Does anyone have photos/scans of the illustration she supposedly gets published in the French magazine, or anything else?

Before she is utterly crucified, it would be good to see what she's actually making MONEY from, just in case those overpaints are, in fact, simply personal work...

Whilst I don't exactly think it's great that she's possibly overpainting without permission, I feel it's different if there's actual business involved.

 

Kateb, if you check her fanpage on Facebook, there are scans of "her" work in a magazine.

 

Well this is just a suggestion, but, if you really wanted to get broader attention on this, write it up as a short story with examples and submit it to Boing Boing. No one (in the general public) knew about the fact that Emily Strange was a blatant copy and ripoff until the story turned up on Boing Boing, and the fallout was pretty considerable.

 

It was already submitted to the blog "You Thought We Wouldn't Notice", which is a watch-dog group that posts about this kind of copying and gets the word out. *Careful windows users, that site may have viruses right now...*

kateb, this is her "artwork" (not fan art or a tribute or anything)... JustBComplex in Portland is selling some of her prints for 1,700 dollars.

 

She is selling actual merchandise with her traced images on them. Myspace gallery of things she sells.

 

Victoria - I actually didn't know Emily the Strange was a stolen image! I never bought any of her stuff but now I definitely never will and I'll be sure and mention it to people who like Emily the Strange. I love Nate the Great.

 

Reference when it comes to art is used to secure a pose. It's used to get solid ideas about fabric draping or lighting situations. You make your own and NEVER use it 100% as the camera can capture flaws that transfer over to your own work.
What Mijn did is not only viewed as art theft among serious artists, but her responses reflects poorly on her as an artist. Personally I'm disgusted.

Regarding the You Thought We Wouldn't Notice blog with the trojan on the website, If you have Adblock Plus for Firefox, add *http: // m-analytics.net/* (minus the spaces, DON'T FOLLOW THAT LINK!) to your filters to block the trojan from downloading.

If you use firefox and don't have Adblock Plus, I recommend getting it. Surfing the internet just isn't the same with out it.

 

Maybe it would be an idea for people on DA or other photo places to have a badge that says "don't trace my photos, Mijn!" or something to that effect, so she can see how aware of this everyone is? It would let a lot of people know that instead of forking out $1000 for her print they can buy your prints for a lot less and not be ripping peoples work off.

Or maybe you should all add aspects of her work to your photos and fight fire with fire :P

 

Oh yeah, she's made it pretty far, if she's now going to have her own DA stamps ;D



I'll try to edit some of my doll pictures to fit her style and I'm going to upload them later to my own DA account. Just for the fun of it

 

I wrote to the Gallery that is hosting her work. They are very surprised and will investigate the issue thoroughly, they said. I sent additional information and a link to Radiotrash's new website that has more information.

I feel so bad for Kallisti.

 

I for one would love to see the pictures she claims are the real originals. I don't really believe they exist but...yeah...

But I guess if I were accused of copying the first thing I would do would be to put all the pictures up somewhere and bring my friends who gave me the pics to prove me right. Because what do we have now? A bunch of forenames...everybody can think up some forenames. Not even one recognizeable username...or real name....or picture...

 

Ah, thanks everyone for those links to her merchandise pages!