Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations

[jsnzart]

@pixel-dsp Maybe,..."At this point in time, there's simply no proof of that!" And that's a fact!

[carrieannebrown]

@pixel-dsp it's not entirely true that Alphonso Dunn is lesser-known, he has 644k followers on YouTube, Jake only has 167k. Jake has a bigger following on Instagram but less overall.

[Julia]

@pixel-dsp ah! That's exactly what I meant in my previous comment and why I don't feel qualify to comment further. But let me give some clarification :

We are prisonners of our biases and cultural references. For me, as an European, I only read a dispute between two artists. Maybe this is because of my education and culture, maybe it is because of the white priviledge, a concept that I wasn't familiar with until recently, as it got popularised through US social medias (and which is an interesting concept to reflect on, don't get me wrong on that!)

If you bring a social and cultural frame into the picture, the story can be read differently :
-the black artist vs. the white artist;
-the perhaps poor artist who still struggles with a day job and self-publishes his books vs. the presumably rich professionnal artist who is supported by a publishing company;
-the less known artist vs. the famous artist;
Etc.

(Edit : these are exemples of interpretation, I don't know anything about Alphonso's or Jake's private and business situations).

All is cumulative and does not exclude one another. This add layers and layers of complexicity. In the context of Black Lives Matter, this is all the most sensitive.

If I were you, I would ask your student to think in terms of his own bias and context, and how much does it weight on his reasonning. Assuming Jake pladgiarised Alphonso's book (for which there is no expert view yet, nor opinion from a neutral party mandated by the artists), isn't he giving some intention to Jake that Jake didn't have? Beside is there some interest from some activists on the Internet to politicise the dispute?

I assume the artists are American and most of their followers are as well. As a non US person, my impression is that the reaction of the people is exacerbated by the current context. Also as a non-US person, I am probably not the best person to analyse the situation and don't want to cause contreversy on the forum. My place is more of an observant. So, if you came this far to read this, please consider it for what it is : a mere thought as I am trying to understand the situation, and not an invitation to debate politics on the forum, which is - to me - not the best place to do so.

[Lee White]

Check out this video by the amazing Peter Han. It gives a much needed perspective on this whole thing. He's a cool guy and I love his work.

https://www.instagram.com/tv/CEdRtshB6Hc/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_linka

[A Former User]

@Lee-White
its always good to see different points of view on such things but at this point the only person who can solve this are jake parker and alphonso dunn or theire respective lawyers. based on the deviantart, expo cancel and now book delay or possible cancle i would guess you got hurt financially and alone due to that i would go for him in term of let the lawyers deal with it.

someone made a claim, it hurt you, now you have to solve it. everyone should keep it at that.

[Lee White]

@Molambo I don't totally agree with that because the claims that are being made could be made against anyone that teaches or even puts out art online. It's important to know how to give something context which is what cancel culture does not want. They want quick and snappy judgments without a lot of information.

Plus, this whole thread is about this particular topic, so it's relevant.

[pixel.dsp]

@Julia I also only viewed this as dispute between two artists. I’m a Asian immigrant living in Canada, so probably have a different lens compared to those in the States. I have all my counter arguments in my head but I deemed it not worth it to politicize this matter and waste my energy by replying to that person in my class. Thanks for your point of view!

[Whitney Simms]

This is a lot of reading! Just wanted to throw my 2 cents. I’ve followed jake for years. Probably most of us have. Watched all the YouTube videos and joined SVS for a few years. Listen to 3 point perspective the day it comes out. (I’ve pivoted to more surface pattern design and stationery with my work, so I am in a different group for my art/business instruction.)

We can only know a person of that status from a distance in most cases. But I just can’t see Jake as someone that holds a book down and follows the flow of a book and plagiarizes with purposeful intent. There is probably a natural flow of how you teach this subject. And order that makes sense. And he’s been teaching it for a billion years. If your a teacher, how many freaking times have you taught gray scale, or still life drawing. Steps to figure drawing. I think that inktober is such a big deal that those techniques are written about more now. But if you take 10 figure drawing books and compact them, I bet there are tons of similarities.

My husband is an attorney. Laws change! They change because of cases. It’s called case law. Or something like that. They will figure it out. Just because it was ruled one way before doesn’t mean this can’t change things.

Good luck @Jake-Parker , and @Lee-White and @daivdhohn thanks for sifting through all the details like you guys do best! I love it when you guys talk taxes and copyright. Just wish it wasn’t because the situation needed it. But thanks for being there!

[Julia]

@pixel-dsp by his remark, I think your student politicised the matter so there would be no wrong doing in exchanging views with him. Now, maybe he politicised the topic unknowwingly (you know, bias, circumstances, etc) and putting the finger on it can only be educational. At the end of the day, opinions are opinions. Construction of opinions can be discussed, opinions themselve very less so.

[Coley]

@Lee-White thanks for linking that video. Very measured and thoughtful response by Peter.

I posted on Lightbox expo twitter about their cancellation of Jake, inktober, SVS . @Coreyartus alerted me to that post ( thanks). That irked me that they were parting ways after not even giving any time for a response from the other side. Things happen so fast. Too fast! Just saying people need time to hear both sides. I'll probably get roasted. I'm keeping it pretty logical and unemotional. I'm married to a lawyer so I have good practice

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Molambo hi, I’m really sorry but I’m a bit confused. What do you mean?

[A Former User]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz the damage is done already and more infos are of course always good, especially for people who are on the fence but you will not change the mind of the already acting mob with views from different people. it either has to come now from jake himself or how i would handle it when possible from jakes lawyer. i dont see a other way how this situation can be handlet since sitting it out might cause just more damage.

i am not sure about the laws in the us but i am sure there can be something done about this kind of allegation, especially when it has such a huge impact on your reputation and your company.

[Heather Boyd]

@Coley I agree. I also had no idea until this thread was posted. I do trust the teachers here. I pray things will be work out.

[demotlj]

To me, one of the sad aspects of this is that Jake's and Alphonso Dunn's book sales and reputations could actually benefit one another instead of being in competition as Dunn seems to think they are. I bought Alphonso's book because of Jake's classes on inking and Inktober, and I have ordered Jake's book as well. I buy lots of "How to" art books (and have several inking books) and they often overlap but I usually find a little something unique in each. If Dunn had simply reviewed Jake's book, even if he said, "I cover a lot of this in my book but more in-depth" or something to that effect, he would probably have boosted his own sales by piquing the interest of Jake's followers. Instead he chose to force people to choose between them.

[RajSolankiArt]

@pixel-dsp it’s a tough position. The only thing I think of is that Alphonso’s YouTube presence and Instagram presence is actually more than Jakes. So calling him “lesser known” is a stretch

[Pamela Fraley]

@Lee-White I watched a good amount of his YouTube and it was really frustrating. He condensed lessons on inking into a book. He drew pictures of his materials. He organized his book according to logical steps. It looks useful and informative. But, all of it has been done before. Sure, it looks like it took a lot of hard work and dedication, but if his claims are true, then he wrote the last book on inking that can ever be written. People who are jumping on this need to take it to its logical end. If no one can ever say anything about form, texture, tools, or consistency, or line, then he just copyrighted the WHOLE INKING ART FORM. Which is weird, because people are so up in arms about Jake copyrighting the Inktober name. It’s just odd. The only thing I can think is that he was mad that someone else wrote a book too and wanted to try to take the opportunity to boost his own sales. And it worked.

[carrieannebrown]

@Pamela-Fraley I thought the same thing, people are claiming he plagiarised Dunn but in the same post are complaining that he trademarked something he created! Crazy

[danielerossi]

@Lee-White Thank you for posting the link. Peter made a lot of excellent points. I hope both Jake and Alphonso can resolve this.

[Eli]

I've been watching the video and I believe that Alphonso Dunn believes what he is saying, but seriously, it's a stretch. It's all standard stuff, taught in a logical order. How does he think he invented any of this and why would he think Jake would need to copy anyone's book? He's been teaching it for years. But now Dunn has unleashed an angry, pitchfork wielding internet mob that has very little to go on and doesn't seem to have any idea how art instruction works. That feels very unprofessional and dangerous to me.

[George Broussard]

@Eli said in Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations:

But now Dunn has unleashed an angry, pitchfork wielding internet mob that has very little to go on and doesn't seem to have any idea how art instruction works. That feels very unprofessional and dangerous to me.

Yes, and if anything it's going to potentially open up Dunn to some litigation. I can only imagine that the Inktober book is seeing devastating pre order cancellations, so that's going to be material financial damages. A lot of irreparable damage will be done to Jake's reputation. Already seeing sponsors pulling away, or professional affiliations with Deviant Art/Lightbox. Where will it end? How much damage will be done?

I almost think Jake will be forced into litigation now just to clear his name on record, even if it won't do much to bring back the lost fans or profit.

I believe Dunn feels genuinely hurt, cheated and lashed out but when things get this big there may be consequences.

I'm really curious what Chronicle does with the book. They could easily just scrap it, favoring to distance from it and write it off, even if there's a case for defending it and fighting the accusation.

Could well be it all blows over in a month and everyone moves on, but the stigma of "you're a plagiarist" will linger forever online and that's a huge deal to an artist. Trolls will be shitting on every social media post Jake makes for a long time.

There's a cost to the accusations Dunn tossed out there, to 650k followers, before a book was even launched and able to be seen and judged. That's an issue.