Friday, July 9, 2010

My design was stolen... Here is the copycat!

My DESIGN AND THE COPYCAT

Last week I mentioned that one of my Flickr friend wrote me and let me know that there is a t-shirt being sold in Korea with my Mustached Owl design on it. The problem is, I've never authorized the usage to any company. Finally, she was able to get some shots of the shirt and sent them to me. Take a look! It's a total rip-off!!!! They didn't even change my design and they claimed that they designed it on the back of the shirt. The Korean company's name is BROCCOLI, and my friend told me that they are pretty well-known in Korea. UUUUUURRRRR!!!!!!

My Original:

Love Child of 3 Trends

The Rip-off:

THIS IS STOLEN FROM MY DESIGN!!!

This Korea company stole my design!!!

21 comments:

Miss J said...

Oh Flora! I am so sorry! Is there any legal action you can take? UUUURRRRR! is right!

Flora Chang said...

I don't know.... It's expensive to take legal action I guess. But I am trying to submit it to http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3 to get it noticed.

Vanessa Kiki Johanning said...

Man... that is so bad!!! I hope there is a way you can get
some sort of compensation !!

~Vanessa

Fenke said...

ruthless! I'd try and contact them anyways. if you show this to a lawyer - they HAVE to compensate it, i am sure. this is such a clear case!

Olivia said...

This makes me so sad :(

I hope you can come to some sort of resolution with the company that did this.

Hugs,
Olivia

Mandi said...

Contact them & let them know you have caught them out!!!
They didn't even change it at all...
How rude that company is..

Tina Gilmore said...

Flora, i'm so sorry that this has happened to you, you must be so frustrated. Perhaps when you photograph your beautiful designs for Flickr/blog etc do them at an angle, that way at least it will be more work for people to copy. Hugs xxx

ch said...

The nerves of some people :(
i'm really sorry to hear this :(
maybe you should put watermark on your works, but oh well....i personally hate watermark because it ruins the design X(

Hazel Terry said...

aaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggghhhh
I think the fact that they didn't change it at all helps in your case!
Good luck Flora

Penélope said...

so sorry. Good luck in trying to solve that... mess - to say the least!
:(

Darnita said...

You should check to see about Pro Bono legal services. This matter disgusts me. Don't let anyone take your creative juices without proper compensation. I should send stinky Broccoli a message.

Chang Yu said...

I'm furious for u too! U have a big chance of winning this. Have you consulted your laywer? We're definitely behind u!

zime said...

grrrrrrrr

Jennifer said...

:O(

Unknown said...

That is one immoral company. Can anything be done through Creative Commons? I also think you will win your case if you pursue. I totally love your design and as it's so unique I am even more amazed they'd take the risk they did.

Unknown said...

That is one immoral company. Can anything be done through Creative Commons? I also think you will win your case if you pursue. I totally love your design and as it's so unique I am even more amazed they'd take the risk they did.

Tamara Henderson said...

How rude! This is happening to a lot of illustrators right now. I read on a few other blogs illustrators getting ripped off by places in different countries. I think watermarking each piece of artwork will be good too.

none provided said...

Aw, I'm so sorry for you. Is there any legal action you can take at all?

It's so sad to see things like these happening. Awesome bloggers like you put your hard work and love into making such cool content for us all to enjoy, and idiotic greedy companies like these are ruining it.

The problem is that all to often its some obscure company in a foreign country, so you feel a bit powerless. But you say that it's a well known company?

Do one thing, just contact someone form that company. See how they respond. If you are lucky, it is possible that some bastard "designer" at their company was just strolling around the internet and thought it will be easy to steal someone's design and pass it as their own. Then chances are that no one realises that the design is stolen. But if you contact some top manager, then they might take the design down..?

I heard these things are starting to happen a lot nowadays. I just read that a famous freelance photographer who put up her work on Flickr got tons of her material stolen. She sued the company, but wasn't successful :(

The problem is the availability of high resolution photos on Flickr, they are much easier to steal. So perhaps put a watermark (although I'm not so sure about this, as it can be easily photo-shopped out, or start hosting your photos on some other obscure photo hosting site, because Flickr is becoming a popular haunt for plagiarists.

Also, best not to make high-res photos available for download. Or cancel the download function (I think there is a option on Flickr for that).

Good luck to you, and don't be hindered by these things, your blog is awesome and we all love reading it. And I hope i manged to help you in any way.

Flora Chang said...

Thank you guys for all your warm and kind comments regarding this matter. I submitted it to this website
(http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3)
so other people can be aware of this company, but
I actually got some hate comments from one lady on that website. It's so laughable and I don't want to give her any satisfaction by keep commenting back. Just so you know that I really really appreciate all your love and support, and I won't be able to keep on sharing if it's not because of you! Hugs to all of you and thank you! You all mean a lot to me.

Christy Amular said...

Oh no! That sucks big time! Better let Brocolli know what they're doing is against the law.

Alely said...

that's terrible! however, your work is so good that companies such as that are ripping it off! but not good because your the creator! boo sauce!