I have always hated New York City. I was never able to see the charm. I have only been there a handful of times and I am always overjoyed when it is time to return to San Francisco. New York City is for the young. New York City is for the patient. I am neither.
However, this most recent trip was different. On this trip, I tried to loosen up and appreciate the pros and do my best to ignore the cons. This was no easy chore but I think I succeeded. I spent time with my beloved East Coast friends. I ate at several fantastic restaurants. I saw some amazing art installations. The weather was perfect. This was the New York City all my friends told me about and I finally got to see it with my own jaded eyes. But of all the experiences I had this last week, there is one that stands out. A single moment that made the rest of the week pale in comparison. It was the moment I realized Paul Smith owed me an apology.
It started simply enough. Lance told me we should swing by the Paul Smith store in SoHo because there was something he wanted me to see. A little background is probably necessary here. Paul Smith is Lance’s favorite fashion designer. He even based one of his blog designs on the iconic Paul Smith stripes. Before I met Lance, I hadn’t even heard of Paul Smith. Lance showed me his genius. A short while later, I bought my first and only suit. It was a Paul Smith and I love it immensely.
We wandered down the hyper crowded cobblestone streets of SoHo-on-a-weekend and made our way to the Paul Smith boutique. We don’t have a Smith store in San Francisco so I was looking forward to seeing his collections in person. Lance led me over to a shelf and pointed at a long sleeved shirt. (just noticed the website refers to it as a sweater… but its pretty much a sweat shirt). It was red with a print of flocking birds in white. “This reminded me of your work.”
It really did. I snapped a picture with my iPhone and put it out of my mind. It was a nice print reminiscent of my work and nothing more. We left empty handed. Back at the hotel room, I pulled out my iPhone and looked at the photo again. It bugged me that it seemed so familiar. Plenty of people have done flocking experiments with code but I have come to find that the personality of the coder is often reflected in the flocking behavior exhibited by the birds. My flocking code differs from Psyop’s. Psyop’s differs from Reynolds’. And so on.
I opened up my laptop and made my way to my Flickr account. I looked over the three images I posted last year of hundreds of birds in flight that I made with Processing. At first, I saw no direct relationship. The Smith design simply looked like another iteration of the work I had done. It nagged at me. It seemed implausible that someone else could have come up with a flocking behavior that had so many aesthetic similarities to mine. Then I saw it. A circle shaped negative space on the edge of a half-circle of flocking birds. This detail was present in both.
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god…”
“What? What is it?”
“I think Paul Smith stole my work!”
I pointed out the detail to Lance who confirmed my suspicion. The more we looked, the more the neighboring details fell into place. Smith’s version was mirrored left to right so I loaded the image in Photoshop and flipped it. “Oh my god! He totally stole my work!” I was dancing around the room. “Paul Smith stole from me!” I will admit it was a strange reaction. I didn’t realize this until later in the day. I was actually thrilled that someone had ripped me off. Someone I liked. That sincerest form of flattery bit doesn’t mean much if the person doing the imitating is making shit work.
“We have to go back!”
“Why?”
“I have to buy it and I want to take better pictures so I can be sure.”
Back at the store, one of the salesmen recognized us from our earlier visit. He asked if he could help us. I pointed at the shirt and said I wanted one. He sized me up as a large and grabbed a couple and led me to the changing room.
“If the arms are too short, we can find you another one.”
I put the shirt on and it fit fine. I couldn’t stop smiling. The whole thing was so damned surreal. Here I am in a Paul Smith changing room trying on a shirt that features a design element stolen from my Flickr site!
“It fits perfectly,” I told the salesman. “It’s like I made it myself,” I joked and smiled at Lance.
“You did make it yourself,” the man replied, oblivious to the inside joke but wanting to play along.
Lance asked the salesman if he knew anything about the print on the shirt. He said something about hobos and the passing of knowledge or something. I was too distracted to pay attention. I said I will take it and he led us to the cashier. $235 later, I was walking out of the store with my very own personalized Paul Smith shirt.
Back at the hotel, I took a couple more pictures with Lance’s camera. I loaded them into Photoshop, flipped them horizontally, and overlaid my image. I had to scale and rotate mine a tiny bit but easily found it to be a pixel perfect match.
In the following two images, cyan represents a perfect match between my content and the shirt content. White represents parts that were cropped out of my original image. The remainder of the red is from content added that isn’t part of my original image. So basically, cyan birds with red glows are stolen.
Amazing, right?! So many circumstances had to line up perfectly for me to even know about this design theft. My boyfriend happens to be a Paul Smith junkie. We both happened to be in New York City around the same time this article was released. Lance and our friend Tara both had to wander into the Paul Smith store. They both needed to be familiar enough with my work to notice the similarity and agree that I should probably see it with my own eyes. All the planets aligned.
Later that evening, Lance, Tara and I went out to dinner at Cookshop. I wore the new Paul Smith shirt. How could I not! At one point during the meal, I went to the mens room. As I stood at the sink, I looked up at the mirror and saw my collaboration with Paul Smith. I couldn’t stop laughing. Processing on a Paul Smith shirt! Casey and Ben are going to love this.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit I am not completely innocent in all this. The birds I used in my coding study were culled from other people’s Flickr photos. I didn’t ask permission. I searched Flickr for images of flocking birds and traced a total of seven small silhouettes which I used in the original flocking study. However, I did not then go on to print my versions on clothing and sell them for hundreds of dollars each.
So what now? I have no idea. I am not angry. I am not feeling vindictive. I am flattered and amused. This isn’t like that Urban Outfitters/Johnny Cupcakes incident. I don’t actually feel wronged. I do feel that some designer for the Paul Smith brand committed an embarrassing act of laziness. This should not be excused and I imagine they will be dealt with accordingly. I don’t get a ton of blog traffic but I would be surprised if this didn’t eventually get back to the Paul Smith organization. And Mr. Smith, if you are reading this, Lance and I have always wanted to spend a week in London. Oh, and I am a 42L.
You are a fool for allowing someone else to rip off your work. There’s a reason why ownership is nine tenths of the law, and why every crime is a variation of theft.
if they were inspired by your design that’d be quite different. they cut and pasted. not only should they be exposed for ripping off original artists, but you should be paid a handsome portion of the proceeds from that item. Plus a penalty. You have a slam-dunk case and you are either too “nice” or too carefree to do anything about it.
With the falling pound you could have bought the shirt from the UK store for 109 BPD which is 170 USD.
@Kyle
So much anger! And so much anonymity! Well, thanks for educating me. Im sorry that my “nice” attitude doesn’t mesh with your “get rich at all costs” mentality. Probably weened by lawyers.
Flight404 you rock. Please consider making your own shirts with this great original design. If you don’t want profits….due to the flickr trackings…you could always donate to charity.
As for lawsuits…we all know the only winners are the lawyers. I completely understand why you would put your time and energy elsewhere. Hopefully Paul Smith will step up and make amends. I’ll certainly never be buying his stuff now that I know it’s ripped off.
It is always a bit more depressing when large companies do this sort of thing. Nice of you to take it so well. If everyone was as relaxed this whole art thing might be much easier.
Robert, I had the opportunity to catch you at the 08 FITC up in Toronto, and I have to say that this is the kind of attitude that makes that event so awesome. I recognized the flocking as soon as it was posted here, and I think your stance towards the whole deal is spot on. Thanks for the awesome talk on processing, and maybe I will even be able to figure it out one day….
Cheers.
Good show and good attitude. I believe that you should pursue contact with the designer as I suspect that you would be in “nirvana” if it were to come about.
I take photos during the Motor Sport events I participate in. I am not a professional photographer, though a few shots have been published. It’s just a hobby that is an off shoot of another hobby. Most of the people that compete are not professional racers, just regular folks that like to have fun with their vehicles. I give a lower resolution version of the pics away for no charge or watermarks with the only caveat that they not use them for commercial purposes. I charge a small amount for the originals, or if they want me to print them. I am proud to say that my pics adorn the desktops, walls and computer screens of many, many people in many places including on a few folks that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. The knowledge that my pics are viewed by and bring enjoyment to many people is a pretty cool “reward.”
I do wonder though if you would have the same “giddy” attitude if your design was plastered on a T-Shirt sold at WallyWorld for $2 each. I figure you probably wouldn’t sue, but would be just a “weee bit dismayed.” : ) But then again, if it was at WallyWorld, you probably would never have discovered it as I get the feeling that that is not a shop that you frequent. ; )
Legally, if you don’t defend your property when it has been stolen, you lose the ability to defend your property any time in the future. Companies aren’t horribly anal about defending their property rights just to be jerks. The way the laws are set up they have to be vigilant or they can lose those rights. If you let them steal your design, you are basically opening it up to the public. I’m sure you can find plenty of examples of cease and desist letters on the web to use as a template (don’t copy it exactly or you will be found guilty in irony court). You probably don’t have to get a lawyer unless you want to recover damages, or they don’t stop selling the shirt.
If you want them to be able to use your design, put in the cease and desist letter that they can only continue using the design if they seek your permission to license to use the design. I really do appreciate your attitude, but the law is not on your side. Defend your property or kiss your flockin’ birds goodbye.
you rock !
Am I the only one who has been cruising Flickr to find where the Paul Smith designer stole the other, bigger, birds from? I suspect those also didn’t come from stock photo catalogues. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.
Unfortunately flocking seagulls aren’t exactly a rare subject on Flickr, so I gave up.
Perhaps you should write a letter to the organisation behind Paul Smith thanking them for using your design. In the letter, point out that you will be using the Paul Smith name in all future advertising for your work.
That might get a response.
I still think it’s a bit sketchy, but I suspect that everyone would be less worked-up if they paid attention to the proportion of the total design that’s yours:
http://sciencevsromance.net/post/56700944/someone-at-paul-smith-lifted-part-of-the-design
Am I interpreting your matchup approximately correctly?
Have you thought about emailing them with a picture of your work with there work (as above) and saying how about next time you pay me to make an original instead of paying someone to rip it of?
El artista Paul Smith acusado de plagiar un trabajo en Processing…
Processing es un lenguaje para creación de gráficos procedurales que está dando mucho que hablar, tanto que el autor de este blog encuentra un sorprendente parecido entre una obra desarrollada en Processing y otra del artista Paul Smith (www.paulsmi…
[...] 28, 2008 check out Robert Hodgin’s page for this story. Posted by Glenn Marshall Filed in Journal ·Tags: paul smith, robert [...]
[...] juicy fashion drama. Paul Smith, OR one of the designers in his camp allegedly flipped a long sleeves design from blogger Robert Hodgin who posted something eerily similar on his flickr account last [...]
[...] all manner of distractions » Blog Archive » It is like I made it myself! (tags: humor graphics plagiarism flickr flash fashion design copyright) [...]
[...] continuation Here. [...]
[...] Flickr user finds part of one of his pictures on a $235 Paul Smith t-shirt and has a great attitude about [...]
[...] he discovered that a big time fashion designer had basically yanked one of his photos off of Flickr and put it on a sweatshirt. While we hear so many stories of people freaking out in such situations, this guy’s reaction is [...]
[...] he discovered that a big time fashion designer had basically yanked one of his photos off of Flickr and put it on a sweatshirt. While we hear so many stories of people freaking out in such situations, this guy’s reaction is [...]
[...] he discovered that a big time fashion designer had basically yanked one of his photos off of Flickr and put it on a sweatshirt. While we hear so many stories of people freaking out in such situations, this guy’s reaction is [...]
[...] he discovered that a big time fashion designer had basically yanked one of his photos off of Flickr and put it on a sweatshirt. While we hear so many stories of people freaking out in such situations, this guy’s reaction is [...]
[...] he discovered that a big time fashion designer had basically yanked one of his photos off of Flickr and put it on a sweatshirt. While we hear so many stories of people freaking out in such situations, this guy’s reaction is [...]
[...] he discovered that a big time fashion designer had basically yanked one of his photos off of Flickr and put it on a sweatshirt. While we hear so many stories of people freaking out in such situations, this guy’s reaction is [...]
[...] all manner of distractions » Blog Archive » It is like I made it myself! (tags: via:kottke research processing print people graphics humor friends processing.org plagiarism paulsmith flocking) [...]
[...] No voy a dejar de leer Design*Sponge. Incluso si alguien me pide que le recomiende un blog sobre los temas de los que ellos tratan, lo recomendaré. Pero actitudes como la suya me parecen reprobables, y asà lo haré saber. DeberÃan aprender algo de, por ejemplo, Robert Hodgin. [...]
[...] brings us nicely to the story of Robert, Flickr and a Paul Smith sweatshirt costing $235. Robs design compared with the $235 Paul Smith [...]
[...] the evidences here [...]
[...] алгоритмизированного иÑкуÑÑтва. Вдохновение у него черпает даже Пол Смит (Paul Smith), Ñ…Ð¾Ñ‚Ñ Ð¾Ñ‚Ñ‡Ð¸Ñлений не делает. [...]
[...] It is like I made it myself! – Paul Smith steals Robert Hodgin’s bird print. It happens quite often in design industry. What I find amazing is Robert’s handling of it, or none of. [...]
[...] for one thing. Maybe you will all visit his blog and find out more about this guy, and Paul smith [...]
[...] Flight404’s artwork RIPPED OFF!! Commenta 16th December , 2008 http://www.flight404.com/blog/?p=135 [...]