Pretty low, apparently. Gypsy Sport, an edgy designer label owned by Rio Uribe that prides itself on diversity and inclusiveness, tried with all their might to pin their infringement of my Guinevere fairy wings onto an innocent person - an innocent person who happens to be a struggling art student who is basically homeless in Puerto Rico due to the damage from hurricane Maria.
I found out about the infringement when a follower tagged me in the comments of the image GypsySport posted (above left). I was not credited, nor asked for permission to use this photo.
I asked them via comments to remove the photo, and they commented back that they had found the photo on Tumblr on a Barbie and would credit me if I am the original artist. I replied that I wanted it removed and don't allow my copyright protected images to be used that way, that I sell different digital wing stock for that purpose, and didn't want others to think they could do this too. They eventually messaged me on Instagram, after I asked them to email me and specifically not to message me via IG because nothing can be downloaded from there, with a low resolution screen shot of Tumblr search results, one of which was the photo above in the middle that has my wings poorly edited in. They cropped out any identifying urls, the date, anything else that would prove what they claimed. They refused to email me the original or the screen shot. They told me they received the DMCA notice I emailed them with proof that I owned the copyright, US Copyright registration number and all, but they still would not remove the photo and I was still not being credited. They were also deleting my comments as well as comments from friends asking to remove the image. Thankfully my phone's screen resolution is high enough that I was able to faintly make out the Tumblr account name when I blew it up in Photoshop. I thought it was fake, because it's called ass--farts, haha! It turned out to be a real account with some beautiful illustrations actually, but that badly edited Barbie photo could not be found anywhere in her gallery. I also discovered that the artist, Ivonne, is a student who is struggling to survive in hurricane ravaged Puerto Rico and has been trying to raise funds to help with rebuilding her home. I got in contact with her about this issue and she told me she never posted that image, but she did post her original drawing of the Swan Lake Barbie and it had the SAME CAPTION. Rio of Gypsy Sport (the ethnic slur used in their name is a whole other problem too) appears to have FAKED a screen shot to make it look like Ivonne infringed on my IP first.
Here is the link to her original post - also shown above on the right: http://ass--farts.tumblr.com/post/161679447989/swan-princess-o
For some reason I can only see the full caption and hash tags when I open it in the app on my phone, and it's the very same photo. The exact image can be found when you search for #swan lake on Tumblr. He must have done a search for one of the hash tags, took a screen shot and simply replaced Ivonne's illustration in the screen shot with his own image he put together to fabricate a false story that would take the blame off of him.
To say it's infuriating would be an understatement!
What's more, they also implicated yet another person in this narrative! I had emailed the screen shot details to the main company address (before I heard from Ivonne) just in case it was some irresponsible employee I was talking to on IG since whoever it was wouldn't give me a name. Emily Morales emailed me back and told me "We have been granted permission from M. Repicky of Mattel® to use these images, previously found on tumblr." and indicated it was in fact Rio I'd been talking to on IG.
I wasn't given his full name or contact info, but he was easy to find although hard to contact as he doesn't publish his email anywhere. When they refused to give me the info I asked for, I called Mattel naturally, because if they were telling the truth I needed to get that taken care of right away. I couldn't have an image out there that Mattel was telling people they were free to use when they didn't have the right to my wing image! They wouldn't give me a link to the image so maybe Mattel would. They did finally credit me - after blocking me on IG - for the last hour or so that it was up, and then removed it. That didn't solve the problem of where the original came from if they had been honest with me.
Once I let Emily know that I've left a message with Mattel with all the details, I got an immediate response telling me to leave Mattel out of it, and "They did NOT grant permission to use that specific image, we have a great relationship with Barbie and assumed this was a Barbie photo."
So sounds like I was lied to in order to deflect liability. They were willing to soil Mattel's rep AND the reputation of a struggling art student who is homeless at the moment.
Well done Gypsy Sport. Super inclusive of you, how upstanding of people's civil rights to place blame on someone in Puerto Rico recovering from hurricane damage.
Hey Gypsy Sport, we ALL deserve an apology. Not a faux apology filled with more lies, but a sincere apology and compensation. Ivonne has a link on her Deviant Art site with info about her situation and how to support her, so why don't you show us that you actually walk your talk by donating some cash so she can fix her house? Here's her link: https://ko-fi.com/A2201D5B
Infringement is against the law, and infringement of work that has been registered with the US Copyright Office like mine has carries statutory damages up to $150,000 for each work, regardless of whether or not any profit was made directly. What's more, my Copyright Management Info was removed from my photo. That's the copyright statement I have written along the bottom panel of the wings in that photo (below), which anyone with half a brain should know means it's not free for anyone to use when it says 'All Rights Reserved'. The removal of Copyright Management Information, or CMI, is a violation of the DMCA Section 1202, and carries an additional penalty on top of the ordinary statutory damages for infringing on registered work of between $2,500 and $25,000.
