:: THIEVES ARE AMONG US ! ( ripped art ) :: Part 2

I received an email from Dirty & Miserable ( the guys who produce t-shirts with my fan artworks ) before this week end
( I just read it this morning ).
They claimed that they did not wanted to steal my work and are ready to make an arrangement.
But as i wrote to them: they make money using copyrighted characters, so now it's a problem between
them and companies like MARVEL, Lucasfilm & NINTENDO.

So i advised them to remove their t-shirts from their website and stop producing/selling them.

Let's see what they will do ...

Below you can read their mail and my answer:


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Hi Abraham,

I did not expect to receive an answer from you, so thanks for that.
Let’s say that I believe you when you say that there was no intention to steal my work, but in the end that’s what you did.
Even if you say that you re-worked the images, it remains very close to my work. Do you want a proof ?
Take a look to the gif I send you, you will see the big similitudes …



To me that is plagiarism.

Also, you think the problem is only between you and me. You’re wrong.
We are talking about characters that belong to very famous companies, so all these characters are copyrighted.
You can’t use them to sell t-shirts unless Marvel, Lucasfilm or Nintendo sell their rights to you.
To make the t-shirts you do, Marvel should have commissioned me to do those artworks, and then give you the rights
to produce your t-shirts. But things did not happen that way.

So, you are producing illegal products.

You want to get an arrangement ?
Stop producing and selling t-shirts that feature copyrighted characters.
Remove all these t-shirts from the shops which are selling them.
I’m not the guy who should tell you that because I don’t own either the rights of these characters.
But the difference between you and me is that I don’t make any money with these characters.

So, you know what you have to do to avoid any problems.

Nicolas Villeminot.



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De : drty miserable [/dirtymiserable@yahoo.com]
Envoyé : vendredi 17 juin 2011 18:06
À : Villeminot Nicolas
Objet : Re: Pixel Art T-Shirt

Nicolas,

Hello.Sorry for not answering before, in fact, I hadn't received an e-mail from you previously.

First of all,in behalf of our work team and myself I salute you and extend an apology.

At first sight,your e-mail seemed awkward to me,then,after reading it,I went over your work placed in the web and found out which of your designs we had used as image references for our products.

You are right,it's clear to me why you get this "stolen"sensation you called out. I would like to explain that there never was a "malicious' intention to take your (or anyone's) designs.
In the other hand,and in order to produce the t-shirts,the images are re-worked,transformed (reducing colors,changing shapes) precisely,to keep it as different as we can,and so,to respect any Copyright.
Also,our t-shirts are produced in limited-editions; it's been a while since we edited those collections.
About the "designer" you mentioned, Pandaztek does not collaborate with us anymore.

If you felt offended,do to our lack of respect to you as an artist (with incredible work,if I'm allowed to say),all I can do is reiterate my apology,and ask you if there's anything else we can do to mend this?

Finally, I want to respectfully extend you an invitation to collaborate with us; I hope you don't get offended for this,it all comes sincerely.Surely,we may not have enough money,but we'll be glad to get to any arrangement.

Abraham.
Dirty&Miserable



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De: Villeminot Nicolas <nvilleminot@betomorrow.com>
Para: dirtymiserable@yahoo.com
Enviado: viernes, junio 17, 2011 7:12 A.M.
Asunto: Pixel Art T-Shirt
Hi there,

I had sent you a message a few months ago about the pixel artworks you are using to make your t-shirts.
A lot of your artworks have been made by me. You did not contacted me to ask me the permission to do that,
that would have been fair from you, but you did not. To me, that is just called stealing. Stealing from me, but most important,
stealing from Marvel, Lucasfilm and Nintendo, because the characters you are using on your t-shirts are copyrighted and belong to these firms.

I find out that your “designer” is Omar Salero aka pandaztk, he is the person who stole those artworks, not only from me, but to another
artists on the internet. It is not because you can download artwork from the internet that it means that they belong to you.
Every creation belong to its creator and only to him, you should know that.

So, to be clear I kindly ask you to remove from your website every pixel artwork that is not your creation and whose character portrayed belongs to
Marvel, Lucasfilm, Nintendo …..

I’m sure you will have some news from them if you don’t remove all these photos featuring stolen artworks from your website and remove
all these t-shirts from your shops.

Nicolas Villeminot.