Graphic Heists

The original "Tribal Face" illustration.

Recently I've had a handful of infringements take place regarding my tribal artwork shown above. These types of situations tend to happen in clusters for some reason?


My tribal art hacked and sold on Shutterstock.com.

This is now the second time shutterstock.com has been caught selling my artwork on their site without permission. Last year the same thing happened with my hawk illustration and it turned out to be some design weasel in Serbia.

At least this time shutterstock.com removed the art pretty fast. But it makes you wonder what their vetting process is.

If you're curious what if any recourse there is, there isn't. This is due to the inadequate and weak DMCA. Corporations like shutterstock.com can hide behind it and as long as they remove the content when notified, they don't have to reimburse the copyright owner. (Thank you very little President Clinton)


Tribal art tattooed on some dudes arm.

Most of this arts infringements come via tattoo applications. The majority of these type of usages never get my permission, but thankfully some do.


Tribal art tattooed on some persons calf muscle.

I'm often asked "How do you locate these?" Well, most of the time I don't. For example with this specific tattoo my fellow design friend in Portland spotted this tattoo on a guy in the same store he was shopping at and asked if he could take a picture of it with his iPhone. He then emailed it to me.

Talk about walking portfolios.


Tribal art ripped and bedazzled by Diamante Transfer.

I've seen this art stolen in almost every way imaginable in the last five years but this was the first time any of my art has been bedazzled. When it's a company infringing I have to send out an official DMCA Infringement Letter. This usually does the trick without any further followup.

If some of these companies would just approach me I'd be willing to work out a fair licensing agreement with them. And the price I charge for tattoo usage is very reasonable.

In 2009 I had to deal with a total of "72" individual infringements. It got old quick. Thankfully 2010 hasn't been quite as bad, but it's still higher than I'd like at "33" infringements to date.