I find it amazing at how many people don’t mind stealing others’ intellectual property and think nothing about it.
When this cartoon was published earlier today, people started commenting on social media. Some said due to Netflix’s new policy of no account sharing, they would be dropping their account. It’s sort of cutting off their nose to spite their face. But they don’t think it’s a good idea to support the streaming service they like.
This reminds me of some of these sites that are clickbait. I’m on on a few now. Not deliberately. And it’s happened before. The sites shall remain nameless here.
A guy reached out to me last week and asked if I would answer a few questions for an article, which I’ve done so many times before. Next thing you know, they placed 60 — not 6–60 of my cartoons on their site and sort of placed the answers to my questions in between.
When I complained, they sent me this long spiel about how this is their method of publication — basically that’s how they do it — they take your work and make it theirs. They didn’t say it that way, they said that’s how they “showcase” it. One bad part is that they are then copied around the internet and others do the same thing — they take a bunch of my cartoons and make clickbait out of it. The only difference is that they go on my site and pick and choose so the cartoons are different.
I’ve interviewed artists for many years and I’ve asked permission to use a few of their pieces to show off their work which was part of the articles. I also had them send me images when possible, so that they were in control of what was shown. But the text was the majority of the work, and a few of their works complimented it, along with a photo of themselves. Here are some on my 10 With Tom site — interviews I have done without stealing anyone’s work.
I’m fuming over this plagiarism by these other websites and I find it amazing that they have a link on them for “removal” of articles. When I brought that up to one of the sites, they said that is for people who post their own stories on the site and want it then removed, which I find to be B.S.
I sell some Tomversation items on Etsy. I saw my actual stuff picked up and being sold in Asia somewhere, they just snapped up the images and cartoons and are using them.
Many years ago, before I was an editor or writer or anything, I was taking photos at an arts festival and one of the artists yelled at me. He didn’t like me taking pictures of his work right out there on the street where it was being shown. I learned a lesson back then and I never again took people’s work for granted or took photos of it without asking their permission.
Yes, I’m guilty of taking Starry Night and other images whenever I’m in museums. I’m not sure where they falls into this. And my cousin goes to museums and draws the work. Not to sell, but to just practice his art. So I’m not really sure where to draw the line (draw the line, no pun intended).
I guess I should be happy that they like my work and they are keeping the copyright and my website part of the images intact, which is a good thing. I guess.
Originally published at tomversation.com on February 13, 2023.
