Help The Little Guy!

I'm sure most don't know that I'm also a musician. I have several works that are protected by copyright and the following story really bothers me. For any author, musician, graphic designer, videographer, etc. this is your worst nightmare coming true! It is a long read but I think it is worth it.

If you would like to help a legal defense fund has been set up for Jon. I have linked it at the bottom.

Today has turned into a real-life nightmare. I wish I could wake up. This nightmare started 9 months ago and has been recurring ever since.

First, a little background. I’ve been designing professionally for 11 years. I started by designing for my church and before long I landed my first design job with Bill Gordon & Associates, an Albuquerque law firm. In January 2000 I formed Relevant Studio as an umbrella for all of my freelance work. I was able to find consistent work through sites such as elance.com, guru.com and designoutpost.com. I began freelancing full-time December 2002.

I’ve known since I was a little boy that I wanted to be an artist. I knew from the first time my preschool doodle went up on my great-grandma’s fridge exactly what I wanted to be. I was introduced to graphic and web design in high school and fell in love with it. I went on to attend The Art Center Design College and The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, all while freelancing on the side to pay the bills.

My first big client was the Warner Brothers TV network (now The CW). They gave me a chance to work on the Smallville launch. Being a comic book geek and TV junkie, I couldn’t have been happier! Because the posters and ads were successful, I was contacted to work on the launch of Birds of Prey as well. That show barely lasted a season, but I enjoyed designing for it anyway. Those ads opened new doors which led to ad work for Alias, CSI and Lost among others. Those jobs were a dream come true for me.

More than anything, the TV ads were a validation for me. They were a sign that I’d picked the right career for me. I haven’t doubted for one moment that I was destined to be a designer. Until today.

This morning I received a message from a friend alerting me to a discussion about me on one of my favorite sites. I tried logging in to see what was going on to find out I had been banned. I emailed the site owner to see what the issue was. His response was that someone had contacted him to inform him I was being investigated for copyright infringement. One of the logos I’ve been accused of stealing was for a client of this site. In order to protect himself from a lawsuit, he had to boot me off the site and distance himself from the problem. I’m not happy about it, but I understand. He wasn’t left with much of a choice.

This morning’s shocker is just a sympton of a larger problem, a HUGE problem, that I became aware of July 2008. I’ve been quietly dealing with it for the past 9 months and thought I was making some headway. Today they crossed a line and have done irreperable damage to my business and my reputation.

I was first contacted by a stock art site in July of last year. They hit me with a bill for a whopping $18,000! I had an account with the site. Years ago I purchased an illustration of a chef’s hat for a client’s project. So, I thought this was some accounting mistake. Nope. This was a bill for new images. Very familiar images. They were images from several of my logos; 65 of them in fact. That breaks down to about $275 per image. They actually wanted me to pay them $275 for each one of MY images!

Once the sticker shock wore off the obvious question came to mind. Where the hell did they get these from? It seems as if most or all of them were lifted from my LogoPond showcase. They especially seemed to favor the ones that made it to the gallery.

My theory is that someone copied my artwork, separated them from any typography and then posted them for sale on the stock site. Someone working for the site either saw my LP showcase or was alerted to the similarities. They then prepared the bill and sent it to me. The good thing is that the bill gives me a record of every single image they took from me. That helps me gather dates, sketches, emails, etc to help me prove my case. The bad thing is that despite my explanations and proof, they will not let this go.

When I refused to pay the bill they hired a law firm specializing in copyright infringement. The attorney called and offered a settlement of $18,000. How is that any different than the bill? I refuse to pay THEM for work I created. That is the epitomy of ridiculous. The attorney didn’t like my response. He threatened to sue. I say BRING IT ON! I have no doubt I can win in court.

Here’s the link to the newly revived LogoPond discussion from August 2008: Copyright Lawyer

However, the new tactic I discovered this morning is so much harder to fight. They are calling or emailing every one of my clients they can find. They inform the client that I’m being investigated for copyright infringement and that the logo I designed for them may have been stolen from their client. After discovering my ban from Design Outpost I began contacting clients to see exactly who they’ve been in touch with. So far, I’ve heard back from three. In every case so far my client is furious with me. They took the lawyer’s warning at face value without bothering to contact me. I understand their reaction to an extent. I’m sure they’re worried that they may be sued as well for using ’stolen’ artwork and the best thing they can do is distance themselves from me.

I feel like this is nothing more than an underhanded campaign meant to demoralize me and destroy my reputation. If you read through their website you can see they work on contingency. This means they don’t get paid if their client doesn’t get paid. I’ve also made it very clear there’s no way in hell that I’ll ever pay up. I’ll declare bankruptcy and go to work for McDonald’s before that happens. Are they thinking they can beat me into submission? Do they think I’ll agree to a settlement to make it all go away? Guess again. I have the truth on my side and I will NEVER pay a rip-off artist or their extortionist lawyers.

Thankfully, I have a lot of incidental proof. I would never have thought to plan for something like this, but now I wish I had. Beyond timestamps this becomes my word against theirs to a degree. The logos on LogoPond have a date stamp showing when I uploaded them to the site. This is good, especially if the designs were stolen from my showcase. My submission date will always be earlier than theirs. Even if its only by a day, first is first. Kode ( @kodespark) suggested looking at the meta data in my source files. I didn’t know about meta data before today, but there are timestamps on the files as well. All of the meta timestamps pre-date my LogoPond submissions.

What do they have? A bill and a bulldog lawyer. They refuse to give me upload dates for any of the images in question. If they believe they’re in the right, then why would they hide that from me? I have asked time and again for the name of the artist who uploaded the stolen work. I finally received an email which is less than helpful:

“Sir, it is not a question of one artist, but several. It is quite obvious you’ve been using the site as your personal reservoir of stolen works.”

I find that extremely hard to believe. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that a group of people came together to form a cartel of logo rips. They are skirting the issue and won’t give me a straight answer about anything.

So what do I do now? How do I fight back? I hope that making the issue public will help. If they’ve done this to me, they could do it to any one of us. It seems that every day one of us finds a new rip-off artist displaying our work as their own and I’m absolutely sick of it! If you don’t have any artistic abilities, then please find a legitimate line of work. I just don’t get it.

I know this is a long post, so I’ll wrap it up. I hope the issue is resolved soon and will be sure to keep everyone updated with my progress. Big big thanks to everyone who’s shown their support on Twitter, Logopond and Facebook! I love you guys and would have given up the fight without your support.

A lawsuit I can handle, but this has hit me hard. If they were shooting for demoralizing, then mission accomplished. I was so upset about this that I almost threw in the towel. I wanted to shut down my site and delete my LP showcase and go find a job doing anything else. If it hadn’t been for my friends, Mike and Kode, I probably would have. They started a #SaveJon campaign on Twitter that showed me now is the time to fight, not walk away.

Story: http://digg.com/d1nxBm