Art Theft - What can you do about it?

*CouchyCreature Jun 20, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

hello, I have a DA friend here who is a prolific artist. He has contacted me just a few hours ago to tell me one of his works from some time ago has been hijacked for the cover of an album released by Sony.

He comes from Bosnia Herzegovina and feels a little helpless, an impoverished artist in an impoverished country, faced with the might of a gigantic media corporation like Sony and searching for the proof that he did create the work over ten years ago to combat a claim by the recording artist that the work is hers.

Does anyone have any idea about what steps he should follow and who he can approach in the European Union for help in regarding copyright issues? He cannot afford a lawyer so is at a distinct disadvantage in initiating a legal exchange with Sony, one of the larger media organisations in the world.

Thanks for reading, and please, this is a serious issue that could arise for ALL artists, so please do not piss around on this topic.

This is the image btw - [link]

thks, david

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!pjubagoni Jun 24, 2012 Professional Traditional Artist

Hi, I'm the artist whose artwork is ripped apart and on the cover of a new Fiona Apple album. It's amazing it got to her. But she is crazy to have signed it.

If someone has her address, I wanted to give her another one for free too, but this one is just for her and to her.

Anyways, I'm too lazy to search around though I started.

She must be a great person anyways, right?

*opiumtraum Jun 20, 2012

he's a dA friend- does that mean he has art up at dA? Or some place on line we could see his work? A couple of places seem to indicate that Fiona Apple drew the picture. A number of people here at dA have been ripped off, some by shady assholes making prints of their work that they sold as their own. Some by companies that took an image & slightly doctored it for a T-shirt design. I remember one of my favorite books, when it first came out had really cool cover at. Turned out the art was by a not-so-well-known English artist (Samuel Palmer) & all the illustrator had done was throw some color on it.

*CouchyCreature Jun 20, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

RE: does that mean he has art up at dA?

Yes. I don't think he would mind if I linked.
He is one of my favorite artists here. His style is slightly surreal and dadaist and reminds me of that of such as Joan Miro, Fred Becker, Francis Picabia, Ernst Kirchner, Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso ...although his style is very definitely his own. He struggles to make art in extreme situations in a place devastated by, and still trying to recover from, a war carried on in his city for almost a decade.

Here are links to his drawing and painting galleries.

RE: A couple of places seem to indicate that Fiona Apple drew the picture.

Yes, that is the impression I get too, but jakov is pretty certain it is his. He is a prolific artist, who, in the past, has given his works away fairly regularly for some reason or other (food, shelter artistic urge, and the work has his 'artistic DNA' all over it if nothing else that proves it is his, and he has existed in a very impoverished situation for some years in a dysfunctional city so it is possible he will never be able to prove authorship.

*opiumtraum Jun 21, 2012

It looks like his style, or like it could be his style. I discovered there's going to be a deluxe version of the CD that's slated to include a "book" of Fiona A's drawings. It'll be interesting to see if the art is authentic (meaning she actually is the author, or if they've ripped off a stack of art & as part of marketing have ascribed her name to them.

Then again "pretty certain the art is his" leaves wiggle room for doubt. I've had my own experience here coming across a piece that looked like I could have done it, right down to the subject matter. I was a little PO'd about being ripped off until I looked at the date. If the artist had discovered me first, he/she would've been the one PO'd. In reality, the other person's drawing had been done first. I've had another idea that I'd come up with independently, only to discover when looking for reference images, that someone else had already pursued the same idea, albeit in a different media. It's a crowded world. Artistic cross-over happens.

*CouchyCreature Jun 21, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

RE: a deluxe version of the CD that's slated to include a "book" of Fiona A's drawings

It would be very interesting to see that book. I have searched for other artworks attributed to her and found only the artwork for the single from the new album - [link] ...It too is of a style that could come from his hands, but I have asked him whether he has seen that work before and have had no reply yet.

If a body of work is any indication, then I incline more to my friend than FA as the author of the work he is disputing.

~ChristoferRudd Jun 21, 2012 Hobbyist Traditional Artist

Sounds like he'll have to learn from this. And Mostar is not that dysfunctional.

Jebiga Jakove

*CouchyCreature Jun 21, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

RE: Sounds like he'll have to learn from this.

Yes. I agree and am sure he already has. 'Document your work' is the lesson to be learnt as a minimal point.

RE: And Mostar is not that dysfunctional

Possibly, it is only my description after all, not his, and it is only my impression based on what I have heard and read recently in various resources.

~Glori305 Jun 20, 2012

He would need to be able to produce the original, and proof that the original is his, and was made prior to the one that Sony has.

Until he has that, even a lawyer can not really help, so that is his first step.

*CouchyCreature Jun 20, 2012 Hobbyist General Artist

I don't think any of that might be possible sadly, unless he can find photographic evidence. He does not have the original in his possession. It is a drawing on scrap paper in pen and marking pen and has obviously not been valued too highly, wherever the original is, as it has been cut in several places (Jakov says where he signed the work and wrote on it - common for him), and sellotaped to some cardboard, some time ago.

Hopefully the cover designer will be able to shed some light on where his actual working image came from, and be interested enough in fairplay to help us find the truth. Whether he had the original or a digital copy (scan or photograph) to work with.

=Self-Epidemic Jun 20, 2012 Professional Digital Artist

As Crimson said; if they sold the original its no longer theirs.

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Art Theft - What can you do about it?

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