Cat Head by Derek Erdman
flyer for Red Jump Suit Apparatus’ MySpace gig.
Observes Derek,
It seems that MySpace, Chili’s or a band called, ahem, “Red Suit Space Jump Apparatus” has stolen one of my cat heads for a show poster. Question is, who do I sue? If Chili’s, how many Awesome Blossoms can I eat in a 1 year span?
Artist of poster said that he got the cat piece from a clipart collection. My question is, if painter paints a piece of public domain clipart, does artist then own said clipart? I don’t think so, he just owns the painting, not the subject. My other theory is that a clipart collection found the painting and then incorporated it into their collection. This would be stealing, but would be on the end of the clipart company, not the artist, the artist just chose from the selection being told it’s safe to use. I guess no one knows for sure other than the painter and the clipart company, but myspace, the band, and the designer all followed the rules.
Perhaps. And they did cut the cat head in half, so that probably reduces the damages Derek can sue for.
I actually managed to find the original image on Clipart.com, check it out: http://tinyurl.com/w548v
His rabbit paintings are also sourced using clip art. For what it’s worth my take on all of this is here.
I talked to the guy that made it, he was really nice. I wasn’t really going to try to sue anybody. I just wanted to eat at Chili’s for free for the rest of my life.
Oh, and ultimately, I wouldn’t have been able to sue anybody.
If I could have sued, there would be lawsuits against me every day. And I wouldn’t be painting, I’d be working at Arby’s.
first of all, I really hope that no one thinks I’m calling the RJA flyer artist a thief. Even though, I uh, did exactly that.
secondly, I think Derek is being way too modest. He INVENTED cats.
Thing is, I didn’t find the image in a clip art book, I found it in a story book from the early 20s. It was a little bigger than the one on clipart.com. The image in question was just the head of the cat, which I silkscreened poorly making it off center. It was the background that threw me, the fact that the white ink behind the black was off center nearly identical to one of mine. So it looked more to me that he had taken MY “version” of the image, oh, I got all huffy.
Really, what had happened is that he did the same exact thing WITH the same exact image. Well, I’m not going to say that he did a poor job at silkscreening it.
Also, I invented the Coca-Cola logo, eBay, shoes, etc.
So pretty much Derek stole an image from an old book and silkscreened it and called it his own then accused another artist of steeling the art that he stole? Wow what a hypocrite.