Artists Using Doll Likenesses without Crediting [Mijn Schatje discussion]

I'm fairly certain most of the new ones are photo manipulations, I recognize a few from the first link from someone I used to watch on devart, she's the one who did the album art for Kerli's album that we're all so familiar with.

Her dA: http://natalieshau.deviantart.com/

 

She's not obliged to.

 

Ditto this.

After all, how many times have you seen the shoes a model is wearing credited in a car ad? The people who designed the cookware in the kitchen for a soup commercial? And so on.

 

True. As long as it is for "editorial usage", and fine art falls within that parameter, then you don't have to. I researched this extensively before doing my book. Even though the legal consensus is that I did not need the doll companies' permission to publish the photographs I had taken of their dolls, I wanted to stay on good terms with the companies and so got permission from every one of them before the final publication. They were all very nice, I might also add.

So you could do a painting of a doll you own, sell it in a gallery, and you would not have to credit the manufacturer/sculptor. In my opinion it is simply common courtesy to do so, and every time I have shown my photographs (just had a show this fall), I have always included the sculpt/company. I do this not only to credit the people who make the dolls, but also to provide information for the general public, the overwhelming majority of whom have never seen these dolls.

What you CAN'T do, is take pictures of the dolls, plaster those pictures on cell phone skins, post cards, greeting cards, calendars, etc., without the permission of the company making the dolls because at that point it stops being fine art and becomes commercial usage (a book of photographs is considered editorial usage). Nor could I take one of my doll photographs and sell it for use in an advertising campaign without the specific permission of the doll company. In this case I would need the equivalent of a model release.

Both of the artists being mentioned in the controversy are within their rights to make artwork (whether it's oil paintings, drawings, or electronic media) of any doll they own or have permission to use as a model (for instance, they could use their friend's doll with their permission) because at that point it is their personal property. Where they have gotten into trouble is that they have taken photographs, which are copyrighted works, and manipulated or otherwise used those for their "artwork", or even worse, commercial products.

I could not, for instance, take a photograph off of a doll company's website, copy it in a painting or other media, and then sell it. Actually, I COULD do that and hope to not get caught, and in fact probably wouldn't get caught unless I had major media coverage like Ms. Schatje (or however the heck you spell it- too lazy to go back and look it up). \

If you are wondering why more people aren't sued for doing just that- remember that it is very expensive to hire an attorney, file court fees, etc. Then when you are dealing with an international situation, it gets even stickier and more complicated and expensive. You have to balance the expected damages against what the court costs will be. So that's why people get away with it- it's often too complicated and too expensive to fight it legally, especially if you are a very small, Asian doll company that may only have a handful of employees.

That said, it is still morally a truly scummy thing to do, IN MY OPINION.

 

If this new person's work is legit, I would feel even more animosity towards MS. When the more legit artists are coming out with work that hasn't been stolen, people are going to question the artist's intentions. MS is making those of us who enjoy seeing really cool BJD art question if this person isn't dishonest, rather than just enjoying the work.

It's sad that we just can't enjoy it, and that this woman has tainted this sector of the hobby.

 

Has anyone else seen Mijin's Facebook page? So many comments like, "I love your work!" "So beautiful!" -__- It really annoys me.

 

So far I haven't seen anything wrong with Natalie Sahu's work. Some seem doll inspired but it doesn't seem traced to me. It seems that she takes all her own photos - a lot of her work is photo manipulations. The Pipos one doesn't seem to be on her DA. She knows about BJD's, and she doesn't seem to be hiding anything. Not stating what you were inspired from isn't that big a deal to me, depending on the circumstances. Unlike Mijin, she does seem to be tracing and isn't plastering her work all over commercial goods. Sahu clearly has talent so I have no reason to suspect she is doing anything wrong. I more fear vector art. Vector art is often traced to begin with, so you get a lot of artists that think they are allowed to trace over anything because they are vectoring it and "transforming" it, even though the trace is almost identical to the original. Hell, I can make a very nice vector piece through tracing and I am horrible at drawing. I hope she is legit, I quite liker her work, it has a lot more depth than Mijn's. Has anyone politely contacted her? Remember, we don't want the art community to think we are crazy doll nuts on a witch hunt with nothing better to do, so be careful with accusations.

 

MS' images were not inspired by artist and company images, but direct/exact copies of the pictures that she merely embellished. Refer to radiotrash's compilation of evidence proving this fact. The images still have the same perspective, same angle, same proportion as the original images--that is not inspiration--that is downright stealing.

 

Natalie isn't new and has been doing this style of art for years. I watch/watched her on DA for years until she stopped posting and moved all her artwork. I have no idea whether or not she used bjd references though. Oddly enough the reason she stopped posting on DA was because people were stealing HER artwork, and not even changing the style. Funny enough when I saw Mijn's stuff I did immediately think of Natalie.

Edit: OT Wah! She came back?! How did I miss this. I must have unwatched her when she initially left. >.<

 

I meant new to the thread, since I have no idea how long either of them has been doing whatever they're doing.

I tend to view a lot of photomanips as suspect, but if she's taking her own reference photos, that definitely falls under the category of 'legit ways to do collage'.

 

Ah sorry in my excitement to go "No don't dump her in with Mijn..at least not yet" I got a little ahead of myself. I do know that in the past she has used herself/her photos as a reference. I can't remember if that's the case with every one of her photo's or not though. I'm hoping none of her stuff are direct copies/stolen images from some else, I'd be very sad indeed to find out if they are.

 

I hope they're legit also since her work is, IMHO, way better than Mijn's. (I actually like it, and Mijn's just leaves me shuddering at the soulless emptiness of it.)

My main concern is that the old myth about 'if I change it X percent, it's now mine!' is very, very prevalent -- enough so that it even crops up here very often as a 'truth of the arts'.

It's also completely untrue.

 

Yes, I've seen others on the forum make the comment that if you change 20 or 30 or some other arbitrary percentage, it's okay, and then pointed out several times that that is not the case.

 

I think BJDs are so general that they really don't need to be credited, since there are so many companies. Many artists use BJDs in their digital works over on DA and don't credit the company because A. They may not know the company and B they aren't copying another artist's exact doll. That's just my opinion.

 

You've just completely missed the point, LoupGarou. The so-called "artists" we're referring to stole photos of dolls from company websites and doll owners, traced over them with vector programs then sold the resulting pictures as "original art" without crediting the original photographers or paying to license the images in breach of copyright.

 

Wait, why is Natalie Shau being compared with MijnSchatje?
Natalie mainly uses her own photo's (or stock photo's) for manipulations and she draws inspiration from ball jointed dolls, like alot of people. She hasn't copied anything. Are we going to pursue anyone who uses likeness of any kind of ball jointed doll? Then we might aswell pull people like Ball Jointed Alice in to this. Oh no, she draws ball jointed dolls! The horror.
Come up with some actual proof before spouting about 'another artist stealing pictures'.

About Mijn Schatje, I'm also not happy she's still making money and denying usage of dolls. The 'in progress' shots that exist of her making the paintings also seem dodgy. They don't really prove anything to me, but whatever. A video would be cool.
I think she could honestly be an amazing artist, because anyone who's handled a paintbrush before will know it's not easy. And even if she traces the faces somehow, you still need a certain level of skill to make it good. Just wish she would make something original.

 

Snow, where did you find out about the source of Natalie Schau's images? I asked her on dA about her doll source images and she repeatedly avoided the question and wouldn't answer.

 

I've been following her for years and at least half of her human pictures are pictures of herself. I believe she said something about it in a journal or something. Not to mentions he used to have photo's of herself online.
About the doll pics, I don't know. Maybe she doesn't use a reference at all. Not everyone uses or needs one. I believe all her doll related pics are digital paintings? There's plenty of people that work without references.
Besides, I don't see any existing doll in that picture linked earlier in this thread at least, so I doubt she actually uses dolls for reference, and if she does, she changes them alot. There's no proof she's stealing anything or tracing anything, so she's good in my book.

 

Then why doesn't she respond when people ask? She can hardly be unaware of the controversy around Mijn Schatje, after all.

 

I don't know? I'm not her, but I don't like to reveal every single thing I do in my work either.
Unless I see photoshop overlay proof, she is doing nothing wrong. Withholding information doesn't mean she's guilty. Alot of artists don't like to talk about their process.
And I don't see how she couldn't be unaware. I go to art school, but I doubt many people there would know who Mijn Schatje is. She probably has heard about it, but it's not a given.