Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

I was feeling more and more disgusted by Leeke's reply (or supposed giving of permission, I guess.) And since I just bought a doll from them, I decided to write to their Q+A board about the matter:

and they wrote this back:

This response kind of makes me think that they didn't realize the full extent of her copying. I know they have had contests for artists to draw their dolls, and are probably more lenient about doll-portraits, but they may not have realized she's selling their copyrighted images to other companies. Hopefully they will revise their opinion.

 

I hope you're right. I had a feeling things might have been lost in translation between them, too. We'll see what happens, I hope they do the right thing.

 

Candygears, that makes me more hopeful. Since there's a language barrier I was wondering if she was misleading in her emails (whether intentionally or not).

 

Oh I would bet a cookie she didn't even come close to telling them (Leeke) what she was really doing. And I would bet real money she didn't tell them she was making cash on it.

Quick edit: It might be very useful for someone (Candygears?) to point them to the commercial sites that are selling her work and point out how much she is making.

 

DIM rocks! I'm gla dthat they wouldn't stand for her BS.

 

I am really glad that representatives from the various companies involved have taken time to post here. I'm definitely going to have to place an order with Luts now! I'm also thrilled to have all my lovely heads from Denny more than ever. I may have to speed up a project I was thinking of doing this fall to order a few more just on principle now.

A huge thank you to them for posting and keeping us informed. That they respect their customers enough to post to the community like they have makes me even more frustrated with Mijn's blatant disrespect to them.

 

I am so happy to see Denny's response to this terrible situation. I love all of my three, DIM lads so much.

 

I already had suspicions that Mijn Schatje did the same thing with Leeke she tried with Luts: Say something vague about having made one drawing with one of their dolls and asking if she can put a link to the website on her MySpace. If I were the manager of a company I wouldn't mind fan art so I can understand Leeke said it was okay for her to post a link with her drawing.

Most likely Mijn Schatje twisted that around to make it look like she has obtained retrospective permission to sell several altered versions of Leeke's promotional pictures.
I suspect she never mentioned to Leeke how many images she made using Leeke's own pictures or owner pictures of Leeke dolls and that she also never mentioned how much money she's making by selling her work. Now that Leeke has a better understanding of the extent of Mijn Schatje's plagiarism, I think they will most likely change their opinion. Hopefully they will act the same way as DIM and Luts. Maybe the doll companies can fight for their copyrights together.

candygears, I applaud the civalised way you've brought this matter to Leeke's attention.

 

I'd say that's generally her tactic as she didn't try this only with Luts or DIM, but basically did the same with Kallisti, too. Asking for permission for one doll, etc. etc.

 

Yeah, I was getting the sense that maybe Leeke didn't really know what they had agreed to. Since they were one of the first sites emailed, I didn't think the whole website was compiled already when they were looking into it. And "I wanted to put up a portrait of one of your dolls on my myspace" is not really the same as "Can I sell a tracing of your photo to Sony?" in my book

 

Even if Leeke agreed with "Just she did drew some DollLeeke and wanted to update her homepage.", I don't think they agreed with the commercial use during the past few years.

Can this part of Mijn Schatje's questionable behaviour be documented with screenshots for Radiotrash's webpage?
People make mistakes. I don't think it's unthinkable that in the beginning Mijn Schatje didn't fully grasp that tracing other people's work and selling it is wrong, but I do think that she knows now that it's not okay. An "Oops, my bad. I'll remove the offending pictures." would have saved her reputation. Those Etsy sellers did that and you don't hear people talk about them anymore, but Mijn Schatje is adding to her reputation she is misleading copyright holders and manipulating their responses into something that looks like retrospective permission. Even if she would start over with something new, that reputation is going to follow her and will be much harder to shake than some errors in the past that got corrected.

 

Ah this is exactly what I meant when I started that thread! I should have been a bit more specific perhaps ^^U But I'm glad the community is taking action!~

 

That doesn't suprise me about Leeke--I wondered if there wasn't something less than truthful going on on Mijn's part which seems to be a pattern of behavior for her. She can't claim ignorance or whatever garbage she told Luts when she continues to pull stuff like this.

 

Candygears! Thanks for contacting Leeke again! It does look like Mijn tried it on with them with her particular way of phrasing her emails.... ;_; I hope things are able to be resolved.

I am still horrified at how Mijn is dealing with this all. I have absolutely no respect for her now, when before, a part of me still wanted and really hoped she would make a statement apologising and explaining the things she has done. Seriously... being a professional artist is not 100% about quality, or your back-log of work, or who you know, or how much money you make... it is about attitude. And Mijn has perhaps the most unprofessional attitude I have ever seen in the illustration circle.

It's horrible. Honestly horrible.

 

I agree. Especially now that Luts and DIM are no longer buying her lies and, in the case of DIM, even posted an official warning on their website with her name posted as a part of the title. Lets see how low her reputation will sink when DIM customers read about it on the notice board.

Man, I sounded like a sadist when I wrote that.....

 

Well, at least it is bec you want to warn others about the horror. ^_^

That woman has really sunked low. Playing w/ words, twisting everything and her not being a native english speaker excuse. She can perfectly read and understand what we are posting. People here contacted the companies and doll owners, she did the same thing, maybe hoping for someone to give her permission and post it as proof, just as some people here has done. I think that she is using everything she can so she won't end up in court. She should've just appologize and take down the said works before she even goes lower than she already is.

 

Mijn, updated her myspace page a couple days ago with the Pipos and Volks "reference picture" she used.

 

ahahahah FAIL.
so much for never having heard of BJDs
she needs to give up. she just keeps digging herself deeper and deeper into a huge mess.

i know volks is not just going to let her post credit and the reference picture and be fine with that.

 

Reading what she wrote to Blastmilk I wouldn't be at all surprised if she used similar wording. The line that kills me in her message to Becky is "of course I won't use these for anything else".
Anything like selling them for hundreds of dollars, perhaps?
Grrrr. It makes me so mad!

 

Yeah, like gage said, she put this up. I hope she doesn't really believe that putting that up after all this makes it right. She still isn't crediting the doll companies. I personally don't care if she is getting permission to use the actual photos (I care if she doesn't though, like with Blastmilk and the company photos); I think she should be getting permission and crediting the companies too. I know that doll portraits aren't competition to the actual dolls themselves, but it just bugs me that she still isn't publicly crediting the companies.