Till now, I am still very unhappy. This idiot Eugene Tan, ripped my artwork images from my website and put up on eBay to sell without my consent. His member name on eBay is gemtasy (Eugene Chan/Chen).
I happened to see his eBay store when checking 'caricature drawing Singapore' on Google, a link given by the StatCounter.com. My wife used my email (not knowing that my name is displayed on the email) to check on the seller. From some of the portraits he displayed, I can guess some of the portraits are done by him.
How do I know it? He approached me few months back to sub-out some of my jobs to him. He told me that he can imitate my drawing style. I said it is important to have his own style, especially in caricatures. I don't want to show my clients my works, get their orders and sub out to other artists. I think this is cheating the clients, which I will not do so. I proposed to have his works displayed on a new section of my website - 'other talents'. If there are demands for his works, I will get him to do it. (Right now, I have removed his works from my website. I am too pissed off to work with people with such personality.)
He emailed back:-
Remember when I asked if I could show your work to my customers? Then sub the work to you? I did that while I was doing a job for a couple at a hotel. Well, the UK customer told me I should try on ebay as Singapore is a small market. He was willing to invest some money and do a website to help.......
I remembered very clearly that I did not give him any permission to showcase my works. He has taken out my signatures and url on all the artworks. I think this is an act of stealing. Given that he himself can draw too, won't he think that will degrade his name, if he has? I am very unhappy about it. I told to remove them from the eBay immediately as this artworks are not done by him, especially when he did not seek my consent to do so. I don't know how long he will keep this from me, if without that email. Right now that he has owned up, I gave him a chance to remove them immediately, before eBay takes any action to his account. (I have reported to eBay Singapore.) If he refused to do so, and eBay can't do anything to stop him from displaying my artworks, I will have to take legal actions to get it done. I have given him 12 hours to remove them. I think he has more than enough time to do it.
I still can't get over it. This issue has wasted me few hours which I can well spend on my drawings otherwise.
( This post is meant to be posted up last night, but failed. I don't know what happened to Blogger. It keeps losing connection with it from my home. I have to post it here from the pc in my gallery)
Blog and Artwork updates of Singapore caricaturist, portrait artist and illustrator - Jit
2 comments:
Maybe you should watermark all your works posted on the web. I think it's safer this way. Can prevent future theft too.
P/s: btw I used to frequent China Sq and was quite inspired by those caricatures on your posters. Went to your shop a few times but never manage to catch you. =)
Thank you for your suggestion. My friend told me to do so. But there are few hundreds of them on my website. It will take up a lot of my time in adding watermark to them. However, the main reason is the artworks will not look good with watermark on them.
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