{"id":11010,"date":"2015-12-17T20:27:49","date_gmt":"2015-12-17T20:27:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/inkskratch-my-illustration-of-the-randy-the\/"},"modified":"2015-12-17T20:27:49","modified_gmt":"2015-12-17T20:27:49","slug":"inkskratch-my-illustration-of-the-randy-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/inkskratch-my-illustration-of-the-randy-the\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

inkskratch<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

My illustration of the Randy \u201cThe Macho Man\u201d Savage was stolen by Freeze Central Mills Inc. and put onto sweatshirts for the holiday season. Freeze Central Mills Inc. is located in New York, I\u2019m located in Toronto. <\/p>\n

I sent a lawyer after them, I got to talk with them on the phone to negotiate all of this. I asked for $1500, which would have covered lawyer\u2019s fees ($1000) and a very small sum ($500) for granting them back rights to publish the image. <\/p>\n

They declined the offer, told me that I was in trouble with the WWE for even making the image, and then offered $350. <\/p>\n

They sold 1440 sweatshirts at an average of $14. Their net profit, $20,160.
\nI\u2019m asking for $1,500 and trying to be as discreet as possible.<\/p>\n

I am furious. <\/p>\n

Freeze Central Mills Inc. stole artwork from my portfolio, claimed I was infringing copyright, and then put it on \u201cofficially licensed\u201d sweatshirts. Those items were then sold to online retailers.<\/p>\n

I created artwork, put it in my portfolio to get work, and was ripped off by a manufacturer looking for free designs. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s no contract between me and the WWE. Also, I can\u2019t imagine a situation where the WWE steals fan art and slaps it on merchandise to sell back to them. They\u2019re a publicly traded company, not two thieves bent over a t-shirt machine.<\/p>\n

I think Freeze Central Mills Inc. hurt the WWE by lying to creative contractors about their rights to the work and disincentivizing them to create art. It\u2019s fearmongering, and not the right image.<\/p>\n

I think it hurts the WWE when Freeze Central Mills Inc. sells apparel items stolen art on it. I think it hurts when there\u2019s an official seal of approval that fools retailers into thinking that everything is above board, when in reality, there\u2019s no agreement between me and the WWE. That we have never met.<\/p>\n

I think Freeze Central Mills Inc. hurts retailers when they don\u2019t notify them about these conflict goods. This problem started at the end of October and things are just happening now. <\/p>\n

(I should note that 80\u2019s Tees has been pretty great. They helped bring Freeze Central Mills Inc. to the bargaining table, discontinued the product and put my credits up to the item. That\u2019s really big of them, and I really appreciate it. These weren\u2019t easy decisions to make.<\/p>\n

(And THAT was only made possible thanks to family, friends and fans that let them know about the problems with this product. So for that, I am really thankful, and humbled. Thank you, thank you, a milion times! thank you)<\/p>\n

For Freeze Central Mills Inc., there\u2019s not much I can do. The sum is too low to sue for, I\u2019m in another country, and it\u2019s basically impossible to enforce. They got away with it. <\/p>\n

However, I CAN say that Freeze Central Mills Incorporated is a company that\u2019s currently in a lawsuit from Adidas for copyright infringement. I can also say that they lost a lawsuit for copyright infringement against the estate of Bob Marley in February of this year. <\/p>\n

Link:<\/b> http:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/portland\/blog\/threads_and_laces\/2015\/08\/adidas-files-trademark-lawsuit-against-forever-21.html<\/a>
Link:<\/b> http:\/\/www.courthousenews.com\/2015\/02\/20\/big-appeals-court-win-for-bob-marleys-heirs.htm<\/a><\/p>\n

And I CAN make this whole mess public so that people know that my work was stolen and know EXACTLY who the thieves are. That\u2019s Freeze Central Mills Incorporated,<\/b> based out of New York.<\/p>\n

Link:<\/b> http:\/\/www.freeze-ny.com<\/a>
Link:<\/b> http:\/\/twitter.com\/freezeteez<\/a>
Link:<\/b> http:\/\/facebook.com\/FreezeNYC<\/a><\/p>\n

And I CAN let artists know that they\u2019re free to make what they want, and that they don\u2019t have to be afraid of infringement claims by jerks like this. That fan communities deserve work made by fans, who care about this stuff and are passionate for it. Make your fan fiction, your fan art, your fan whatever-you-want. Make stuff for yourself, for other fans, have courage and have fun. <\/p>\n

I love the comics community, I\u2019m a fan of wrestling, I like loud music and I love the friends I\u2019ve made through conventions. I respect and admire my fellow artists and writers, I love my editors and the publishers I\u2019ve worked with, the retailers, the printers, the convention runners, the shippers, receivers and even the distributors. Hell, I\u2019ll even give a kiss to the corporations that thrive off of this insanity. I love this whole damn business.<\/p>\n

Every fan connected to this industry, even if we don\u2019t see eye to eye on everyday issues, we\u2019re still thrilled by this industry and love to help it grow and mature.<\/p>\n

Nobody should have to work with thieves. It hurts fans everywhere.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

inkskratch: My illustration of the Randy \u201cThe Macho Man\u201d Savage was stolen by Freeze Central Mills Inc. and put onto sweatshirts for the holiday season. Freeze Central Mills Inc. is located in New York, I\u2019m located in Toronto. I sent a lawyer after them, I got to talk with them on the phone to negotiate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6PWot-2RA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafaelfajardo.com\/portfolio\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}