Last night I was reading a post on the Blowout Cards forum about a collector being reunited with a graded 1989 Fleer Billy Ripken card that he sold a number of years ago. I took a quick look at eBay to see what kinds of variations there were for the card and I came across an auction of someone selling a copy of the card I created using the Billy Ripken card for one of my What If? posts back in 2014.
Here is the link to my post from 2014: http://packwar.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-if-billy-ripken.html
Here is the auction: http://www.ebay.com/itm/BILLY-RIPKEN-RC-F-F-1988-ERROR-VERY-COOL-CUSTOM-MADE-ODDBALL-CARD-READ-/182408538536?&rmvSB=true
I sent him an email asking politely that he end the auction because I created the image for the blog and only for entertainment, not to be sold. He did eventually respond and did end the auction but he has been hounding me to allow him to sell the card saying that if I had no intent of selling it than he doesn't understand why I wont let him sell it. He has even gone on to claim that his friend owns the rights to the Billy Ripken card and I should allow his friend to sell copies of the card.
Wow, that's absurd. Maybe you need to start watermarking your images? Did you check his sold auctions to see if he has sold any?
ReplyDeleteHe's definitely not friends with Ripken.
I have begun adding watermarks but I never did it steadily but from now on I will definitely make sure to add a watermark. I checked through his feedback over the prior year and he sold at least two of these cards where feedback was left.
DeleteI'm irrationally upset by this. Like Fuji, I noticed he has a TON of customs...I can't imagine how many more he is ripping off.
DeleteI see he ended the auction
ReplyDeleteThat's crazy! Glad he stopped the auction.
ReplyDeleteI've had colorizations, transformations and customs show up on eBay--some from sellers with feedback scores over 20,000. I've asked them to stop using my stuff, but I've never gotten a response. Some of its stupid. I did a Steve Whitaker Pilots "transformation" where I put his head on Mike Hershberger's body. I was doing that for a close crop custom, so I didn't worry about what it looked like beyond the crop, but they took the full picture and had Steve sign them, and then they sold them. I mean, first of all, the uniform number is wrong. But Hershberger's big hairy arms are definitely not a fit for Whitaker. It looked stupid. Why he signed them, I don't know (well, I suppose they paid him to). But that's America for ya. There's always somebody out there looking to make money off of other people's work without compensating that person in the least. Hell, we've got a President-elect whose entire career is exactly that.
ReplyDeleteThese type of people are something else, we do these cards for fun and to share with the hobby not to be sold by some person who rips the image off of Google images and sells them as their own creation.
DeleteAnother sad example of someone trying to make money off of someone else's hard work. Looks like he's sold other customs. I wonder how many were his creations.
ReplyDeleteI am willing to bet none of them. I saw a bunch of Bob Lemke's work too, which included all of the 1955 Topps All-Americans. I told the seller that Bob just died and hoped that the seller would pull Bob's cards out of respect but he didn't.
DeleteRarely do I get upset over cardboard. I'm upset. This seller has no integrity. None at all.
DeleteCan't tell you how mad this makes me. Ripping you off, Bob Lemke, etc. I sent him a message which I figure he'll ignore and am contacting eBay (which is probably a waste of time too).
ReplyDeleteDefgav got contacted by Topps for something similar and was asked to stop, which he kindly obliged. Topps should go after this guy.
DeleteI see it way too often with other art too. I figured it was going to be your Horror movie customs art being used on t-shirts or something like that. I didn't expect it to be this card. Sorry, man, that sucks!
ReplyDeleteWhat a turd. Glad he pulled it.
ReplyDeleteYep, the same guy stole an image of the back of a card a friend made for me. I guess I should have considered this before sharing the image online. He mixed it with a different front of the card, but still…he is making #2-3 a shot for ripped off images. I wonder if he made any himself or if they are all stolen?
ReplyDelete