Updates… [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]

Last week a Brit­ish illus­trator called Jonathan Edwards informed me that he had come across a book that con­tained his illus­tra­tions along with other illus­trat­ors work. He con­tac­ted me because the book is also riddled with inter­views that he recog­nized as being the inter­views I con­duc­ted for the LCS.

Today I received a copy of the book (cost­ing me $100) and to my horror it has pla­gi­ar­ized the art blog. This has left me deeply upset!

Colorful Illustrations 93°C

This has not only hurt me… The book is avail­able online and in book stores and every image in it has been stolen from my com­munity web­site and the web­sites of the illus­trat­ors fea­tured – with the inter­views being the back­bone of the pub­lic­a­tion. Before anyone asks – the inter­net is pub­licly access­ible not public domain, copy­right still applies.

“The wor­ry­ing thing is all images are included on a CD in the back. This seems to give the impres­sion that all the fea­tured images are clip-​art or copy­right free which is cer­tainly not the case.” – Jonathan Edwards

The images file-​names on the CD have not even been renamed in anyway, so you can see exactly where they were taken from. The inter­views are word for word with all the typos and switch­ing between Eng­lish and Amer­ican gram­mar. Also accord­ing to the Book the inter­views were pro­duced by the Art Dir­ector Ber­na­dette • J with no ref­er­ence to the LCS.

Per­son­ally this has hurt me as I’ve spent the last three years build­ing the archive of Artist inter­views on the LCS. But what has really made me angry is that all that work included in the book has been stolen from the illus­trat­ors involved with some of them even being cred­ited for work that is not their own. I am sure some of them won’t care much, but others will and will want retri­bu­tion. Someone has made a lot of money from this book and it wasn’t me or the unknow­ing con­trib­ut­ors. So please do not buy it!

If you think you can help here is some addi­tional inform­a­tion.
Art Director/Producer: Ber­na­dette J
Graphic Design: Mal­colm Lee
pub­lished by Great Cre­ativ­ity organ­iz­a­tion
ISBN 978-988-98142-0-5
12/F Chin­a­chem John­ston Plaza Wan
178-186 John­ston Road
chia, Hong Kong
T:+85281324106
F:+85281324105

I’m cur­rently in the pro­cess of con­tact­ing the included illus­trat­ors, to let them know they’ve been ripped-​off. Please note I’ve already tried to find the pub­lish­ers via the inter­net and even called them to find out the number is for a com­pany called Lucky Enter­prise Co., Ltd. who make air fil­ters. Also I’ve tried to con­tact the retail­ers, but I don’t think any of them will get back to me as they’re all only sales people. Index Book were help­ful enough to give me the web­site of the place they pur­chased the books from for resale – Azur. But when I’ve tried phoning them on +81-3-3292-7601 I hit a brick wall because I don’t speak Japan­ese (maybe someone can help me with that).

I’ve been in con­tact with the AOI to get legal advice, but I think at the end of the day I or the illus­trat­ors who have had their copy-​stolen will not be able to do much about this situ­ation without major back­ing or sup­port. So if you’re a major organ­iz­a­tion or copy­right lawyer email me… darren at lcsv4 dot com

Update: Here is a link to the gal­lery show­cas­ing every page. [LINK]


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