Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations

[danielerossi]

I just ran into a kinda-sorta similar situation last night! I was working on a few thumbnail sketches for ideas for “Fish”, the first Inktober prompt. After trying a few different scenarios, I settled on a tiger looking into a fish market window. The sketch I drew is from the perspective of looking at the tiger from the inside of the fish market. I liked what I drew so I — of course — fire up Instagram to share with the world.

You know how Instagram shows you the latest photo in your news feed when you open it up? What I saw made my mouth drop. A friend of mine in Japan DREW THE SAME THING! Except hers is of a pig looking into a donut shop window. Both of our layouts were the same. Food at the bottom, hands on window, lots of white space above the animal’s head. Uncanny.

Neither of us knew we were drawing anything about fish or animals or donuts or whatever. We don’t even keep in touch on a daily basis. As far as I know, I don’t think she’s participating in Inktober (or at least, I haven’t seen anything related to a fish prompt in her illustration).

I admit, anxiety got the best of me as this reminded me of the Alphonso/Jake thing. So — to make sure — I sent her a private message with her illustration and mine along with a note saying how I had just made this drawing when hers happened pop up in my news feed.

[lpetiti]

What has amazed me is that, even though people say they aren't sticking around with Inktober and Jake, they feel the need to do just that and bash anyone who still participates. "I'm unfollowing you." or things similar to it run rampent in comments. My opinion has always been "Okay, that's your business..." Why people feel the need to make a big production about posting how they will no longer participate in anything has always baffled me.

[Blitz55]

@NessIllustration That is a great breakdown, thanks for taking the time to write that out. I may even use that info to pass on to others I know who don't understand the situation so well.

I typically feel that most of that had to have been a misunderstanding. I've seen it stated as "Jake sicking his lawyers on people" which sounds so misleading and wrong. I don't know Jake personally though I've had the chance to meet him a few times at ECCC and through that and all his public videos and work I have yet to ever see something that makes me think this is a shady guy, this is the kind of guy out to get his and to hell with other artists.

But, people take misleading information and run with it on the internet. I was part of something like that and saw first hand how a fabricated story by a random person on a forum completely destroyed the work of one of my best friends simply because people took this person at their word and never bothered to actually look into the matter. It's freaking pathetic how that always seems to be the case.

Thank you once again.
Gave you a follow on Instagram too, nice work. I like your mushrooms. haha

[A Former User]

@lpetiti said in Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations:

What has amazed me is that, even though people say they aren't sticking around with Inktober and Jake, they feel the need to do just that and bash anyone who still participates. "I'm unfollowing you." or things similar to it run rampent in comments. My opinion has always been "Okay, that's your business..." Why people feel the need to make a big production about posting how they will no longer participate in anything has always baffled me.

thats how it alway works. people dont like something and want other people to not like it too. in this case for sure with the additional mindsetting that they have to let the people know the "truth" for them to follow theire path because why else would the prompt lists still get so many likes. it must be that people dont know and not just that they either side with him, dont care or whatever.

i just wait for the first people claiming he copied alphonsos stuff with the new indigogo easy sketchbook "mirror" device

[djlambson]

@danielerossi Oh my gosh. I sketched this yesterday in preparation for my first go at Inktober.
I guess we should not be surprised..it was literally my first ..well, second thought. Now I'm curious how many of these there will be!

[lpetiti]

@Molambo I had a friend tell me "you're aware of his plagiarism right? We discovered that he stole work. Just be aware of it when you post with the hashtag".

The way people think we're ignorant of accusations just because we dont buy into them is...mind boggling.

[pixel.dsp]

@NessIllustration You articulated it so well. Just like what Kesh said in his video with regards to people criticizing Jake for “lawyering up”: In what kind of la la cuckoo land do they live in?...
The event is called Inktober and not Digitober... and I still used multiple types of medium and hastaged Inktober and the world did not end.
Do artists think they can just use someone else’s logo without permission?
And I hope Alphonse also “lawyered up” because he’s gonna need one for making such serious accusations.

[danielerossi]

@djlambson Hahahahaha this is so funny, scary, and cool at the same time

[djlambson]

@danielerossi Agreed! crazy.

[NessIllustration]

@djlambson All of you are plagiarists apparently haha!

[A Former User]

@lpetiti yeah, i really wonder when the innocent till proven guilty thing changed. based on the last insta post from alphonso the thing will not be done in a shot amount of time. i really wonder how this will end, book itself is still listed on amazon.

[djlambson]

@NessIllustration We are!

[lpetiti]

@Molambo it's hard not to be skeptical of him, because I just saw that post and no where does it seem like he acknowledges that 1)its for the courts to decide and LAWYERS and 2)he has contributed to a lot of the "haters" online by giving them a platform to speak up without any of us knowing the full story. I'm not just blindly following Jake either, I dont think any of us are. If, for some unknown reason, it ended up being that he did plagiarize, then he would need to be held accountable, as all artists would. Problem is...I dont think he did so he shouldnt be held accountable until such time (however unlikely) its determined he did. And if he didnt...then hes having to deal with other peoples rash decisions to accuse without knowing all of the facts.

One interesting observation...just browsing around the comments to Alphonsos post. I dont see anyone criticizing him or bad mouthing him. I'm assuming if people dont agree, then they're just not posting. So...why dont those followers pay the Inktober posts the same courtesy?

[NessIllustration]

@Molambo I just looked up that post, wow... It's a bad trip, but the comments take the cake. Someone said: "You have treated this episode in a very calm way and earned much respect." I really have no words.

[K.Flagg]

Just read Alphonso's post....wow....just wow.

[George Broussard]

@lpetiti said in Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations:

One interesting observation...just browsing around the comments to Alphonsos post. I dont see anyone criticizing him or bad mouthing him. I'm assuming if people dont agree, then they're just not posting. So...why dont those followers pay the Inktober posts the same courtesy?

You have to click to see recent comments, vs top comments. The top comments are clearly the ones ppl click like on and bubble and are skewed toward Dunn. There are a fair number of posts calling Dunn out but they are never seen because Top Comments is the default.

[davidhohn]

So I imagine the post being referred to by @NessIllustration and @Molambo is Dunn's recent IG post.
As some SVS members may go over and read it I feel compelled to make the same correction here that I did on his post:

POOR MANS COPYRIGHT is a myth. Do not do this. Please research copyright law. It is not hard, and if you are a creative it is the basis of your job.

https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

I love copyright. The concept of it, teaching it, using it in my job. There's nothing more frustrating than seeing 25,000 people getting fed misinformation about it.

Edit: So he posted the same thing to his YouTube channel. Now there's 600K people "learning" this stuff. . . . sigh. . . .

[Norman Morana]

@George-Broussard I think they’re referring to Dunn’s new post on Instagram. Unless you are too? I’m not sure if you can arrange comments on Instagram. I’ve been looking at that new post off and on. I haven’t seen a single negative comment on there either. Guessing people that can see that the book is most likely authentic are also more polite.

Venting side notes:

This whole ordeal is incredibly frustrating to see. One comment on Jake’s recent post, shows that someone is sending out misinformation that if you tag a post with Inktober, Jake owns it. Silly. Some people don’t get that it’s only the Inktober logo you can’t freely use, which makes sense. I work with logos in my day job and you can’t just go throwing those around willy-nilly. And then to assume someone who’s been teaching and helping people for years isn’t capable of writing their own book. Also I worry about the implications this could have for anyone wanting to teach in the future.

I haven’t been able to find the book on amazon by searching but I can always still see It when I go to my preorder. It’s always shown the price but today instead of the dollar amount it reads “currently unavailable” hoping thats not a sign of bad news or a huge delay.

[rafaartstudio]

@Norman-Morana On Twitter someone I shared Kesh's video said to me could not search the book, so I checked through my bookmarks, sigh is currently unavailable.

https://www.amazon.com/Inktober-All-Year-Long-Indispensable/dp/145217041X

@danielerossi , right, hey do you know the meaning of paradigm?

I realized now this became a sort of paradigm. Anyone please go ahead if you want to write detailed example about it. I have to think on an example.

Edit: So, I finally came with some words, will keep it simple for you.
Social Media to me been this way lately. Anything that people see online, will believe so, and more if is shared 1K times without research further.

For example, a colleague of mine believed that there was a over-counter remedy for the COVID-19 that saw in a shared video through Facebook. I asked why, his response was is because everyone is talking about it. I understood that people were fed up with this misinformation without educate themselves first.
I think this situation is becoming a paradigm to this point.

[xin li]

I am very frustrated reading Dunn's recent post, and deeply troubled by his last message "Don't be afraid to speak up." I am truely astounished to see how he has created a internet mob to bully another person with an accusation that has no proven evidences, and went to to justify his action by indicating it is somehow a brave thing to do.

I wonder what he needs to see/hear/know/experience in order to gain him some emphathy to see a situation from another person's point of view. Life is not a Superman movie - there is no clear line between good and evil. It is very easy to frame one self as a hero in his/her own version of the story. To be decent human being requires us constently remind ourselves that our version of the story is not the entire truth.

As an ancient chinese saying goes "There are three sides to an argument - your side, my side and the right side".