Every single link in that quote is a link to a comprehensive ink drawing book that is/was widely available. Even if you don’t count the ones that are out of print (but are in libraries, art classrooms, and are available online) you’re still looking at *at least* ten, one of which has been in continuous publication for 100 years and two of which are differentbooks written by one author. Also I own two books that aren’t even directly linked here (both about cartooning) that include comprehensive pen and ink techniques as part of a larger whole and cover materials materially similar to what Dunn is saying was plagiarized, and that’s not even getting into the really specific and narrow “pen and ink animals” “drawing in ballpoint pen” “pen and ink landscape” “pen and ink for comics” “pen and ink and watercolor” “pen and ink and charcoal” books that are out there that also cover basic pen and ink technique in a pretty comprehensive way. There are so many pen and ink instruction books that attempting to open links to all of them in the various places that I found them crashed my browser.
He also really, really doubles down on “there is no functional difference between these sections and the layouts are identical” when A) there is a functional difference because Dunn wrote a technical instruction guide and Parker wrote a low-key how-to book for casuals that is primarily about motivation and mindset and B) Dunn’s book has a strong vertical layout and Parker’s is square.
It is making me bugfuck crazy that he’s claiming these two layouts are duplicates.
One of these pages is twice as tall as the other. One has a centered brushstroke font as the header with descriptions under each of four tools; One has left-aligned text with a sans serif header and single-word descriptions next to nine tools. One has tools that are presented illustrated at an angle that points to the gutter of the layout, one has tools that point to the center of the page. We are, literally, not the same.
My second favorite quote from the lawsuit is this:
“Dunn has found many supporters online, who believe that Parker has committed plagiarism and infringed on Dunn’s copyrighted works.”
Friend, what your twitter followers think isn’t legally actionable.
The suit claims that the uses of Dunn’s work were numerous and far reaching, but looking at the images used in the filing it kind of looks like Dunn hasn’t gotten a copy of the book and is still screencapping from the ten images on Amazon. Shoutout to this absolute maniac on Pinterest who not only did a side-by-side comparison of Inktober All YearandPen & Ink Drawing but also compared Pen & Ink Drawing to a bunch of other ink illustration books. Also I’m pretty sure Inktober All Year Long is unreleased and the lawsuit is based on sales continuing until December 2020 but I can’t find the book anywhere new or used and the few people who have reviewed it have claimed they got it because Amazon sent it to them on accident after delivery was cancelled and every seller that I can find that had links to it lists it as backordered or now has a 404 error for the book.
Here’s another pertinent quote from the suit:
Authors instruct on pen and ink drawings in multiple ways. Dunn’s work, however, is not the result of restating standard methods or formulae, but is his original expression born from his creativity.
I do continue to feel really, really bad for Alfonso Dunn, because it really seems like he spent a lot of time reinventing the wheel and is upset that a similarly popular artist is also making a wheel. Like, in the original video he REALLY fixates on the idea of “varying” strokes, and insists that the use of the word “varied” or “variable” must be plagiarized from him because he spent so long coming up with the right word to use for that technique - but the 100-year-old pen and ink instruction book I discussed earlier has a multi-page layout about varied strokes.
Anywaythe lawsuit was filed in September of 2021 and so far it’s been just a shitload of extensions to serve papers and motions to dismiss and motions to extend the time to respond to the motion to dismiss.
I don’t think that Parker is perfect (I actually find him pretty annoying and I do agree that it is very questionable to claim exclusive ownership of an event that became popular because of millions of participants) and I don’t think that Dunn is malicious, but in this case I do think that Dunn is wrong. This guy has a take on it that pretty much aligns with my opinion.
And I’m interested in the outcome of the case because a lot of the claims that Dunn made in his video and appears to reiterate in the case have to do with attempting to claim exclusive rights to teach art fundamentals using extant language, so that’s actually pretty important!
Anyway I am going to continue to Be Weird about it.
I cannot emphasize enough how much you need to read thoroughly through the terms of any publication before you send your writing to them. It is mandatory that you know and understand what rights you’re giving away when you’re trying to get published.
Just the other day I was emailed by a relatively new indie journal looking for writers. They made it very clear that they did not pay writers for their work, so I figured I’d probably be passing, but I took a look at their Copyright policy out of curiosity and it was a nightmare. They wanted “non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide license and right to use, display, reproduce, distribute, and publish the Work on the internet and on or in any medium” (that’s copy and pasted btw) and that was the first of 10 sections on their Copyright agreement page. Yikes. That’s exactly the type of publishing nightmare you don’t want to be trapped in.
Most journals will ask for “First North American Rights” or a variation on “First Rights” which operate under the assumption that all right revert back to you and they only have the right to be the first publishers of the work. That is what you need to be looking for because you do want to retain all the rights to your work.
You want all rights to revert back to you upon publication in case you, say, want to publish it again in the future or use it for a bookmark or post it on your blog, or anything else you might want to do with the writing you worked hard on. Any time a publisher wants more than that, be very suspicious. Anyone who wants to own your work forever and be able to do whatever they want with it without your permission is not to be trusted. Anyone who wants all that and wants you to sign away your right to ever be paid for your work is running a scam.
Protect your writing. It’s not just your intellectual property, it’s also your baby. You worked hard on it. You need to do the extra research to protect yourself so that a scammer (or even a well meaning start up) doesn’t steal you work right from under you nose and make money off of it.
Exclusive publishing rights have to have a set time frame! Do not agree to anything that doesn’t clearly state “up to five years from signature” or something like that.
What if the publisher goes defunct? What if they get bought by another publisher who doesn’t care to promote or publish your work? You still can’t to anything with it, you don’t own it anymore!
There is no photo for December 6, 2017. I had an idea for a picture, but fell asleep and didn’t wake up until after midnight.
This is as good a time as any to say that I will stop loading my original photography to tumblr at the end of the year. I noticed in June that tumblr had started stripping all IPTC metadata and almost all EXIF information from photos. I wrote to them, but they have not changed their policy. Besides technical details of exposure time and camera settings, tumblr is also deleting date and time, my descriptions and keywords. Most importantly, they are erasing copyright ownership information that I deliberately incorporated in the file.
Would tumblr crop out artists’ signatures on drawings? Would tumblr remove the artists’ names and song titles from audio files? No. So why do they think it’s a good idea to rob artists of credit for original photography? By the way, this is illegal in some countries. A German photographer sued Facebook for stripping EXIF data, and won.
A notice for those of you who may not look at my photography page every day.
“Spesso si crede un po’ a tutto come segno di speranza. Poi un giorno accade che qualcuno muore e non riesci ad accettarlo. Come se tutto ciò che hai creduto fino all’attimo precedente, sia d’improvviso svanito. Giri per casa a cercarlo; esci, ritorni e speri di ritrovarlo. Il suo corpo non c’è e non lo rivedrai mai più.
Ma la vita va avanti e nel quotidiano ti accorgi che quella persona esiste ancora, ti guardi allo specchio ed è lì che rimane impressa nella tua pelle, nei tuoi occhi, nei tuoi respiri.
Perché in realtà sarà sempre lì e farà sempre parte di te, della tua vita, del tuo futuro, nonostante tutto. Continuando a sperare e ad inseguire il sogno di poterlo rivedere, un giorno. Lo senti, lo avverti, perché sa che non puoi fare a meno dell’amore che riusciva a trasmetterti senza dire una parola. Il suo corpo non c’è più, ma lui è sempre lì. È l’involucro che muore, ma l’anima, l’anima vive per sempre.”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced legislation on Tuesday that would strip “woke corporations like Disney” of special protections enabling companies to hold copyright material for decades.
The Copyright Clause Restoration Act would limit copyrighted material to 56 years and apply the new rule retroactively, meaning Disney and other companies could immediately lose some copyright protections if the law were passed.
The measure is the latest Republican attack on Disney, which last month was stripped of its self-governing status at its amusement park in Orlando, Fla., after Gov. Ron DeSantis took issue with the media company for speaking out against the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, which prohibits the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade.
Hawley’s bill goes after Disney’s long-running list of iconic characters stretching from Mickey Mouse to Marvel superheroes.
Hawley said in a press release that “the age of Republican handouts to Big Business is over.”
God it’s like watching a more morally bankrupt Freddy vs Jason
Hawley said in a press release that “the age of Republican handouts to Big Business is over.”
So you agree that Republicans have been giving handouts to Big Business prior to this?
Souls. “You don’t know this but we secretly rescue each other….” @n.r.hart Love Poems to No One, a winter season
I love my fans. I have the best fans from around the world Thank you for ordering my best-selling book “Love Poems to No One” and sharing these pictures! I really love when my guy fans send in these great pictures with my books! I appreciate you. Thank you! ❤️ • Repost from @idmencha
A thrilling “where some courts have gone before but it’s awesome every time” ruling out of Los Angeles today, as a trial court found that the mashup of Dr Seuss and Star Trek entitled “Oh, the Places You’ll Boldly Go” is a transformative work, protected by the Fair Use doctrine, and not a copyright infringement. Salient sections of the ruling include: “Although Defendants certainly borrowed from Go!—at times liberally—the elements borrowed were always adapted or transformed. The Court therefore concludes … that Defendants’ work, while commercial, is highly transformative. Plaintiff’s argument that Boldly is a derivative work misses the mark, as a derivative work is not foreclosed from being transformative (or constituting a fair use).” Page 31 of the ruling discusses the purpose of the Copyright Act, which is seemingly sometimes forgotten by copyright owners: “[T]he primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but ‘to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.’ To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work.” The ruling strongly supports fanworks, follow-on creativity and parodies (even though this work wasn’t one). Yes, it’s only a trial court ruling, and it can be appealed, but it sets out the law sensibly and structurally and hopefully will be upheld if it goes up on appeal.
There’s more discussion of it on Twitter and you can read the entire ruling here.
