My Work Copied By Another Artist . . .

Interesting...it looks like a lot of your work is also imitation.

Unless you are a vampire...and have lived centuries, I see a lot of work before your lifetime. ;)

Imitation is how we learn, but selling it...well, there are a lot of schools of thought on that.

I wonder if Da Vinci would be flattered?

Looks like you have a fair bit of work that isn't exactly original to you either. So....really?

That's very true Kevin, lol.

Gorgeous!



I do wonder why FAA is happy for anyone to 'share' images from other artists , and to say that the Artist is.......themself, not the original artist.
I am so over worrying about that now........if FAA doesn't care, why should I......? and why should you, Daniel.?



.

First thought was wow here's a talent! And nearly followed. Upon closer inspection it would have been like following a random Google image search

---

Edit: Actually inspiration may come anytime, anywhere, from anything and everything...

Followed

This is why I don't think public domain images have a place in here at all, anyone can download and tweak it in software and sell it, they are not artists, the copy free images and sell them, almost the same as stealing in my eyes. As long as I am venting another item that bothers me is the selling of anything that is tied to famous people, sports logos and such unless they are painted images. To me this is riding on the coat-tails of the rich and famous and could land the "artist" in a court room someday for copyright and trademark infringement. So many here are concerned with images taken from within public view of buildings and such but little concern over the former mentioned items.

In my opinion as far as public domain images that have been enhanced, it is a creative work. If an artist can make it look good (see Vivian's example of his work) that is an accomplishment and is not easy, takes knowledge of the more sophisticated image editor or you would see a lot more esthetic looking enhanced public domain art! Daniel has a talent and knows the software, his avatar is excellent portrait photography in a period style.

First, thank you to all the viewers and posters here.

My original post was about a creative piece I did and another FAA artist that copied every aspect of it. I had to decide orientation, what items to include and exclude, object sizes. their relationship to each other on the page, and, finally, a title heading done in a particular size and obscure font. The piece was copied exactly.

It caught me by surprise. Having said that, I hope it sells!

Now, on to reproduction philosophy. Yes, I do do reproductions and reinterpretations, along with other offerings. I'm an open source kind of guy. Would I rather see these photos, documents, whatever languish hidden in an archive where no one would ever see them, or would it be better if someone rehabilitated them and offered them for sale, which might bring someone some happiness in their personal space. I choose the latter.

Some people selling here, especially some of the large collections, do 'pass-through,' where they pull the archived image and without doing anything post it for sale. That's okay, but it's not what I do.

As an example, I did a 1912 photograph I call THE CHEMIST yesterday. The original glass negative had a large black blob obscuring most of the bottom half, which most would pass by. I realized the resolution was high enough to salvage it, so I cropped it for a nice viewpoint. Next, I ran it through 5 different pieces of software to enhance its positive aspects. During that time, I spent almost 2 hours eliminating specks and artifacts to bring it up to the quality standards I uphold. Now, it's out from the shadows and, I think, tells a story.

Often times, when I'm doing this restorative work I feel great emotional responsibility to get it right as part of the legacy and intent of the original photographer or artist. If it sells, great, but if it doesn't . . . that's okay, too. I just love restoring a few of the many hidden treasures out there.

which image was it btw?

---Mike Savad

Well, Mike, before I posted, I decided I didn't want to make this specifically about the person who copied. Who knows what would happen. I will tell you the person has 400,000 views and seems to be well represented on FAA. It was kind of an anecdotal general musing that Hey! works are copied.

i know of a person that visits many people that sell and more or less copies as much stuff as they can. if they live near by he captures it the same way you did and copies almost everything about it. every day i see him rummaging through my things. i have to go out of my way to get something or make something he can't easily copy.

---Mike Savad

Extraordinary ......

So, Daniel, you can't show us your version of the work they copied? It seems suspect to come ehre and not offer proof. Not sure what the point was. I do enjoy how you have this listed --



"One of my PROHIBITION series."

@ Mike, if you know who it is can't you DMCA him or FAA?

i can't, it's their picture, they simply took it where i took it. we could be standing side by side to shoot the same exact scene, we both own copyrights to our pictures. we can't copyright the scene. but it is sad if someone can only copy from other people and not really do it on their own.

---Mike Savad

That's crazy Mike... I'm going to guess that this person would have a really difficult time reproducing your image processing though.

he runs it through a tone mapper which makes them kind of dark and dirty. they don't have the finesse mine has, but if a customer thinks its mine and sees his first, he may get the sale. he copies from a number of other artists as well. not much is original looking. but he can't seem to do any digital art, so it seems i'm safe there.

and according to google, when you type a name related searches comes up, and he's not on his own list.

---Mike Savad