Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations
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@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.
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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.
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@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
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@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.
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@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
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@Lee-White Thank you for posting the link. Peter made a lot of excellent points. I hope both Jake and Alphonso can resolve this.
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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.
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@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.
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I’m curious to see what @Will-Terry thinks. He dealt with copyright stuff with his last Kickstarter and he’s known Jake for a long time.
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@George-Broussard My pre-order is telling me it's being released on the 15th. I hope that stands as pulling it would be the equivalent to a book burning.
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@sigross I didn't do a preorder because I don't have Amazon prime, so I thought if I waited until the book came out it would have a free shipping option, but now I don't see it anywhere on Amazon. I hope it's only gone temporarily.
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@carolinebautista I'm on the UK Amazon so that might be why.
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@sigross said in Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations:
@George-Broussard My pre-order is telling me it's being released on the 15th. I hope that stands as pulling it would be the equivalent to a book burning.
Sadly, looks like Chronicle said they have put a hold on release. No idea if that will affect the 15th or not. Places like Amazon are last to be updated on things like this and a publisher might be hesitant to change the date on Amazon prematurely because it would further stall pre-orders. My guess is Chronicle and their lawyers will look at Jake's book and Dunn's book in the next few days and make a legal assessment of any exposure they have. If the lawyers say it's iffy they may delay release. Unfortunately, lawyers almost always take an overly cautious approach to rendering legal opinions, so even if the book is safe, it might get delayed just to be super-safe and change a few pages, etc. Will see.
But you can 100% bet that Chronicle's lawyers are comparing the books as we speak.
https://twitter.com/ChronicleBooks/status/1299394332374437890?s=20
"Thank you for everyone’s notes on the upcoming book, Inktober All Year Long. Our team is taking this matter very seriously and investigating the situation. We have held the release of this book while we look into this matter. We will share more when we can."
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@carolinebautista said in Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations:
@sigross I didn't do a preorder because I don't have Amazon prime, so I thought if I waited until the book came out it would have a free shipping option, but now I don't see it anywhere on Amazon. I hope it's only gone temporarily.
Holy crap, you're right. It was there yesterday so it's been pulled from Amazon in the last 12-24h.
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SVS Faculty Instructor
www.leewhiteillustration.com -
I just preordered it, just on principle. Maybe if Chronicle see’s that people still want it they will continue with the release of it.
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@Lee-White Thanks, I just preordered it too.
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@Lee-White said in Inktober Book Plagerism Accusations:
It's still there: https://www.amazon.com/Inktober-All-Year-Long-Indispensable/dp/145217041X
Lee, that's interesting. It doesn't come up in search anymore, but a direct link works. It was the top result a couple days ago. Should be able to go to amazon and type in "inktober" and find it. Still shows up in your orders section if you pre-ordered. Wonder if this is something Chronicle did, or Amazon.
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Still available in Canada on Indigo. Side note: I still can’t get over how great Jake designed the cover! Though not surprised
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Pardon my endless posts on this topic... but there’s so much to learn from this incident...
I know I’m not suppose to bash artist here, but I cannot help but feel disappointed by Alphonso as I’ve seriously lost respect for him, even if lawyers end up deciding that the plagiarism claim stands. Even in this scenario, I think Alphonso handled this matter so poorly with such lack of professionalism, even when dealing with unprofessional act such as plagiarism. Before this, I had equally positive view of both artists: I really enjoy 3-Point Perspective podcast and Alphonso‘s books.
This is not about “oh Alphonso should have dealt with it privately with Jake”. This about being a mature adult and approach the person in question yourself and have a conversation. This is like any work place: go talk to your problematic colleague in person first, and if that’s not productive, then go to your superior.
Alphonso just chose to “go to the superior” which is the trolly artsy community with volatil emotions. And yes, he is genuinely hurt, feels cheated and believes in what he said, but he also knew exactly what he was doing, i.e. to destroy Jake’s reputation and book sale before it can be published. He didn’t even want to wait and see if Jake referenced him in the book.
Alphonso probably doesn’t realize this but his rage and calculated behavior hurt the spirit of the art community. By commanding trolls to lash out on a seemingly (not yet proven) deserving suspect, he will hurt artists’ and budding entrepreneurs’ creative initiatives to risk putting out a product into the world.
If the roles were reversed, I’m sure Jake would not have prematurely published an inflammatory video entitled: “Alphonso Dunn plagiarized my book.”
May this be a lesson for my future myself: don’t react in the heat of the moment/anger/rage - wait until I can respond with calmness.
