Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

What I can't believe is that she's insisting that she is in close contact with the owners (Kallisti being one) and have permission to use their photos.

While still insisting that the photos used for the overlays aren't the ones she used for reference. Even though they line up exactly.

I just can't understand how she's going to backtrack anymore when the owners and companies come out about how she doesn't have their permission. She better not try to lay blame on these other 'owners' she's referring to (Barb and Tanya?) and say that they were the ones to provide the references as their own. Cause that would be a new low.

 

She'll get what's coming to her, I think...I hope. I mean, it's COMPLETELY obvious and now most of the companies involved have the pictures and are pursuing action now, now I just hope the Gallery hosting her exhibit sees the plagiarism and takes action as well. She is giving independent digital artists a bad name.

 

WIN!! I can't wait to see mijn style photo manipulations. Does it say ho she creates her images- could they be simple manipulations if she only sells as prints?

 

If you redraw something by hand it's a new one art , if you digitaly change the first or do overpaint on a print the 20% change is ok ... & the laws about single artists & biotechnic products are different from those in manufacture , so use a company's pic on pins ,bags etc have nothing to do with painting by hand a new work seeing this pic ...(if this painting gets on pins then credit goes to painter , if photo of a doll as comes from company goes to pins credit goes to photo artist/doll company , if fully repainted doll photo goes to pics credit goes to repainter & maybe in doll company but only if doll is still easily recognized & doll's company name mentioned)
manufacture...
if you ask for a minimee of jonny depp, DIM contacts jonny depp?no of course!!! if they'd like to cast him in vinyl in hundreds copies like Tonner they'd do it, but watch this - not because it looks like jonny depp BECAUSE they need to use the name "Jonny Depp" & the name "Pirates of the carribean" ... if they didn't care to use the names it could look alike & none to be bothered ... but you will lose the benefit of promotion , like addidas shoes & abbibas shoes (yes exist) -or fake D&G etc the design may be copied but NOT the brand name so you know it's a copycat - this about manufacture

back to the art...
I am a painter , I can paint a totaly lookalike of Van Gogh painting (and all students of art schools are forced to both create lookalikes & works of a new inspiration) the only thing I can't do is to sign it as Van Gogh , I can take a poster or pic (of museum site) of a Van Gogh's painting to see & recreate totaly by hand a new but same painting (never can be exactly the same) but I can't digitaly modify the photo/poster & use it ,or use/post the photo as is ,that's the case...But hand made works are new works always ...you can't sign as the other artist of course or use logotypes & heroes-cartoon names (if there is any) your source had.
What happened to people, impressionists created painting seeing from anothers paintings or the same theme from nature just to explore art & fun , most artists back then travel from everywhere to Italy just to copy Raphael & now we see a resemblance & say go on burn the artist ???
I never use pc on art because it's not my style , everything I do is by hand & never modified anything in a pc programm & don't even know how to , but I didn't know that taking my empty canvas & painting seeing a bjd photo would be such a thing (thanks I never done it) when I can take my blanc canvas & creating a copy of Delacroix ... About me I prefer creating based on a new inspiration totaly mine , but sometimes borrow stylistic elements from here & there , & create in any style or mix styles , most call me more independent than it should (lol) but If I wish to create a painting lookalike to Munch's "Scream" or "Marat I" I have the right to as I paint with my hands & not with pc .. What about bjd getting traditional art/asian etcings & carvings in background of photos they are doing infrigement ???
I surely know now I'll never bother to make a painting with a bjd inside just in case ... ... &. just to keep self safe ...

 

.. It's not the fact it's based on BJDs but that fact that it's copied directly from Company and Private photographs?

She obviously thinks this is not legal/frowned upon or she would admit it herself instead of claiming she lost her photos?

 

Agnes-Agatha, she claimed she had never seen BJD photos that looked EXACTLY like her work. It's like you painting imitation of Starry Sky and pretending you never saw Van Gogh's.

 

Wow... This is an interesting witch hunt you're all going on. It's all based on assumption. Assumption that someone is tracing. No one can really know. No one can really know anything about this person or how she works, what she uses to draw, or if she uses anything! It's all someones assumption, and the rest fan the flames.

Think about it, even if she were using dolls, someone else can pose their dolls exactly like someone else and if you tell me that's copy right infringement, well, I'd laugh. When it all comes down to it, these dolls can only do so many things. They are not quite so special and unique as many people thing. They are still mass produced molds. You can change their paint as much as you like, tilt their head as much as you like, and someone on the other side of the world can still do something similar without even knowing they "copied" you.
I think slandering a woman you've never met, is cruel and childish. But I have ethics. Not everyone does.

 

...have you actually looked at the pictures in question?

If she did not trace over the photos in question, then she got a lot of dolls and gave them identical faceups to the photos she's accused of stealing, then posed them exactly the same way and photographed them from the exact same angles... including positioning the eyes in at the same (sometimes wrong) direction as the references.

She also admitted in emails that she follows some of these photographers and claimed to have their permissions. (Including Kallisti, who doesn't know her from Adam and is furious.)

 

I did look at the pictures. I still will not assume anything and think it is wrong for others to do so. I trust that when people say they did not trace something, they are telling the truth. I have seen her describe in short how she works, someone trying to slander her was even the one who re-posted it. I don't think she would go into that kind of detail about how she works if she were tracing.

 

I think that if I was tracing, I would have a fantastic story prepared to cover my ass in case I got found out. I guess I'm just not as trusting.

 

Gee , have you ever heard of this thing called "lying"? Or maybe "denial"?

I think she has every opportunity to show her side of the story. Funny what's taking so long.

The photoshop is to make it even clearer beyond doubt. Do you think photoshop would have even been done if people could not see the similarities with their own eyes? Do you think people would suspect anything if it wasn't already kind of blindingly obvious?

 

Just wanted to voice my opinion too... having looked at the pictures, it is clear that the artist is using others' photography as her 'crutch' (as someone else phrased it).

I understand that those who are immediately affected (those who've had their work 'stolen', for example) are likely to be fuming. But...

If I were her and reading this thread, I too would probably be too intimidated to admit the truth. Afterall, there is a slim chance that she did not realise that she was infringing on people's creative rights. And now it's too late.

 

I always thought the 20% rule was a myth?

From here:
http://painting.about.com/cs/artistscopyright/f/copyrightfaq6.htm

So actually the inverse is kinda true. Basically if it's recognizable you may be in legal trouble. But using a theme or a pose would be alright but taking someone else's picture and messing with it isn't alright. It also basically boils down to using the image as a "reference." Think of it like writing an essay. Writing an essay with large chunks of text and very little of your own input is a no no. Whereas using a reference properly is using short pertinant quotes and then the bulk being your own interpretation and explanation of those quotes. So use the least amount of someone else's work you possibly can.

And in a related search...

http://painting.about.com/cs/artistscopyright/f/copyrightfaq5.htm

Is it alright to take a photo and make a painting/copy of it? The short answer is no. You need to have permission from the photographer because they hold the copyright to the image... meaning they have the rights to say who copies it or not. You need express permission. And sometimes you have to pay them for usage... and they have to know what you plan to use it for.

Example... I'm a photographer. I put together a catalog of some of my photo excursions and had it at my artist alley booth. People then could order prints from me to use as reference or as images for a report or essay. They pay me money for that privilege because they are my pictures. Now if someone was to go through my DA and just take one of my images and use it without permission and heavily copy it I would be upset since they are stealing part of my livelihood. By paying for use, it helps insure that I can afford future photo excursions... traveling is expensive. Paying for use of 10 images means I can afford to visit another state park. It pays for the entrance fee. That means I can have more pictures for someone to choose from.

 

I read this thread with interest. Very strange to see random dutch words used in this thread (mijn schatje could mean 'my baby' )

 

And to continue from my soapbox... Andy Warhol is used as an example... to which the link says that Andy's art was cited back to the original he worked from. (example... the soup cans are noted as being from Campbells) And he was working in a time when the world was less concerned about infringement. There's laws now to protect against that but when he was around they weren't as enforced. So like with music... it may have been flattering for Mozart to take themes from other composers without permission, nowadays it will result in a lawsuit.

 

Forgive my semantics, but...what?

So from a short explanation of what she does, the inference is that she has in painstaking detail, described her artistic process? That is very difficult for me to believe, not to mention the tutorial that she has posted up on her MySpace does not elucidate anything. She has not shown any process in how she does the eyes much less described any process beyond that it is time-consuming and that she does the details "one by one."

Both tracing and drawing can take work, and both work on details "one by one."

 

This is so incredibly frustrating... I too am tempted to PM all her facebook "friends"... *sigh* I can't wait for her to get what's coming to her. As an artist myself, this is incredibly infuriating, seeing someone make buttloads of cash on things that they traced. Every artist wants to be able to live off their art.. seeing someone cheat and succeed is a slap in the face.

 

Your willingness to accept her explanations doesn't make you more ethical. All it does is make you more trusting of strangers, and perhaps more willing to overlook contradictions and distorted logic. I know of few societies that believe those characteristics are a good thing in this day and age.

The actual ethical thing to do, in my opinion, is not to sit back and accept nonsensical explanations, but to take a stand for what is right and support the hard-working people and companies who have been used as the basis of her "art" without permission, compensation, or even apology after the fact. Doing so is not childish and cruel. Showing the victims disdain, refusing to acknowledge their trampled rights, and telling them that they are the unethical ones is.

 

Two things with this.

1) In my world 'ethics' would dictate that I call out someone who's making a dishonest living off someone else's honest work (and thereby cutting into THEIR profits, in some cases).

2) If something is going to be 'slander' it must be baseless accusation. There's nothing baseless about any of this, as has been proven by the direct photo comparisons. (And if you want to get technical, as it's all written down here it would actually be libel and not slander if it was false. But that's another tale.) I personally find it more cruel and childish to be turning a profit dishonestly, but that's just my outlook.

A few years ago there was a huge kerfluffle in the LotR fandom when a very popular fan artist was outed as having simply run photographs of actors through a few Photoshop filters and passed them off as her own original work. She actually created bogus 'in-progress' pictures to try and cover her ass when she was found out; it didn't work then, it won't work now (and if I recall correctly Crystal's hed-pastede-on-yey was actually LESS obvious than this, frighteningly enough). What makes this infinitely worse, imho, is that this girl is actually turning a profit off her "work". Lord knows if she used one of my photos for her "art" I would be mad as hell and looking to sue her for it.

As Vanilla Ice discovered to his chagrin when Queen threatened to slap him with a massive lawsuit (that ended up getting settled out of court). Changing one note does not a new bass line make, and changing two things about a photo does not a new piece of art make.