Profile for stalliongsta - sad psycho RIPPED OFF by major publisher!!!

stalliongsta aka benjamin berg is a 35.82 year old boy, has been a member since December 7, 2008, has scored 60,383 submissions, giving an average score of 2.72, helping 920 designs get printed.

URL: http://www.animalswithinanimals.com/stallio/

Jan 11 '10 by stalliongsta
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sad psycho RIPPED OFF by major publisher!!!

about Sad Psycho

my dad bought me a book for xmas called level 26. it's a high-profile book: the lead author is the creator of CSI, design by mark ecko, cover photo by missy suicide, etc.

frankly, it's not a good read. but imagine my surprise when i opened it up, and right there on the inside front cover was sad psycho! (it's prominently included in a collage of photos. the book has a cheesy gimmick of being the first "digi-novel"... there's a companion website full of videos that accompany the story; the photos are from those videos.)

i didn't notice an attribution for michael fuchs, so here's hoping he got a nice fat check for licensing this illustration in the book!

update: here it is:

2nd update: michael has confirmed that he didn't give permission and wasn't paid for this.

stalliongsta on Jan 11 '10 at 2:03pm

this book is about a serial killer who's so amazingly brilliant/sadistic/whatever that they have to invent a whole new category to classify him (level 26 on the "so-called Evil Scale").

the killer is called "Sqweegel".

no, seriously. they call him "Sqweegel"!

stalliongsta on Jan 12 '10 at 12:39am

the strikingly handsome super-agent who tracks the killer is named "steve dark". i'll give you one guess as to his disposition.

18 days later

stalliongsta on Jan 30 '10 at 10:39pm

photo added! i looked & couldn't find a credit for michael fuchs.

stalliongsta on Jan 31 '10 at 9:09am

does it count as threadspotting if you spot a threadless illustration, but not in t-shirt form?

stalliongsta on Jan 31 '10 at 10:14am

"interior illustrations by mark ecko"

stalliongsta on Feb 01 '10 at 8:46am

is anyone in contact with michael fuchs? i just want to be sure he didn't get ripped off here...

stalliongsta on Feb 02 '10 at 10:40am

just heard back from michael... it turns out this was used without his permission. :(

he wrote:

huh, what the ***. what's that book?

no, i didnt know about that, and no they didnt pay anything to use my character. its crazy, it's one of my oldest character designs and it has been stolen and ripped more often than anything else i have ever done. and i dont mean a rip off like a slightly close looking characterdesign, i mean a simple plain copy and paste.

thanks mate for showing me.

stalliongsta on Feb 02 '10 at 10:58am

this book was published by a sub-imprint of penguin. i expect better of penguin!

here's the website for the book. it's now been released in germany and france.

i have to wonder who was responsible for putting "sad psycho" in there. mark ecko? missy or sawa suicide? some grunt at penguin? whoever it is should've known better.

stalliongsta on Feb 02 '10 at 11:35am

at first, i was just annoyed that the book wasn't very good.

now i'm annoyed that someone thought they could get away with this.

Retroludo on Feb 02 '10 at 11:37am

That's a pretty blatant rip-off. Have you also e-mailed Threadless?

sonmi on Feb 02 '10 at 11:40am

boo-urns

stalliongsta on Feb 02 '10 at 11:45am

Have you also e-mailed Threadless?

no, i only confirmed this morning that this was used without permission.

alexmdc on Feb 02 '10 at 11:48am

oooh that really sucks, hope he gets something out of it

MeiSomething on Feb 02 '10 at 11:50am

i do not understand the point of having the word, 'copyright' when it seems to do nothing for us................

*wants to google more info but too sleepy...*

stalliongsta on Feb 02 '10 at 12:03pm

copyright doesn't prevent people from taking your stuff, but it does help you get money from them or shut them down when they do.

considering this is an international publisher (subsidiary of pearson llc), i'm confident michael could get some money from this.

stalliongsta on Feb 02 '10 at 12:22pm

so whom at threadless would i email about this? the help page doesn't have a "help, my design has been ripped off!" section that i can find.

stalliongsta on Feb 03 '10 at 11:55am

stalliongsta on Feb 02 '10 at 12:22pm

so whom at threadless would i email about this? the help page doesn't have a "help, my design has been ripped off!" section that i can find.

stalliongsta on Feb 04 '10 at 8:54am

stalliongsta on Feb 03 '10 at 11:55am

stalliongsta on Feb 02 '10 at 12:22pm

so whom at threadless would i email about this? the help page doesn't have a "help, my design has been ripped off!" section that i can find.

sonmi on Feb 04 '10 at 9:26am

i would just e-mail customer service, and they can probably direct you from there.

rbthatcher on Feb 04 '10 at 9:29am

What sucks is you said you didn't even like the book!

bcrider on Feb 04 '10 at 9:38am

Yep, what Julia said.

What a blatant rip. Sheesh.

the other festa on Feb 04 '10 at 9:45am

we are looking into it - thank you for this post!

digsy on Feb 04 '10 at 9:49am

thats awful

shot for spotting it and chasing up on it properly.

i'd just email customer services - they should be able to get on it.

otherwise i'm pretty sure michael could email the publishers direct and issue them with a nice warning

the other festa on Feb 04 '10 at 10:06am

Also, any chance you'd let me 'borrow' your copy of the book? We'll cover shipping, etc.

stalliongsta on Feb 04 '10 at 10:11am

Also, any chance you'd let me 'borrow' your copy of the book? We'll cover shipping, etc.

i think my dad is reading it. when he's done, i can ship it to you.

8 days later

stalliongsta on Feb 12 '10 at 12:58pm

finally shipped it! i meant to ship it sooner, but the snowstorms got in the way.

107 days later

Salsera on May 31 '10 at 12:32am

The owner of copyright in the sad psycho character needs to take legal action against the publisher of this book for failing to even ask permission to display the character in their book. You have the right to either be paid for them using your character, or have the book taken off the shelves and burned - or both! I sincerely hope that the owner of sad psycho is compensated for their flagrant theft because that is what copyright laws are here to protect, and they do not have the right to use others work without their permission.

stalliongsta on May 31 '10 at 4:40pm

i sent a copy of the book to threadless so they could look into this... that's the last i heard about this, though.

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my primary artistic endeavor is music, both under the name stAllio! and with my band, animals within animals.

i also dabble in graphic design and visual arts (mostly databending and collage).

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