Categories
Information Kuwait Mags & Books

Unauthorized Usage by Bazaar

Last month I posted about how Bazaar used an illustration for the cover of their dining guide without crediting the illustrator, without paying for the image and without permission from the artist. They replied thanking me for finding the artist and that they contacted him and were going to reimburse him.

Well they did contact him but the amount they offered to pay the artist was just $200. Considering that rights managed images start at a $1000 and upwards then you could imagine how low $200 is. Anyway the original artist had this to say about the whole incident:

I have been invited to comment the case with Bazaar copying an image that once was created by me. The image was used without my permission. I was therefore never compensated financially and for good reasons I assume that I was never mentioned in the credit line. I was made aware of the unauthorized usage before Bazaar contacted me.

When they contacted me they offered to compensate me financially. I am sure they found that the compensation was fair but I have a different opinion. In fact we are in a position where we don’t seem to be able to reach an agreement. I have therefore decided that it is not worth to take this any further due to the cost and time that I would have to spend on this.

I have also decided that I will not accept money that Bazaar offers me since that would be accepting the terms of how they have used my image. So case is closed.

I think it is vital to defend the copyright law for many different reasons. In most countries it is seen as self-evident that you shouldn’t use an image without paying for the copyright, but from what I can tell by following the debate on this website I understand that Q8 might not be one of those countries. The sad thing is that in countries where the copyright law is not taken seriously the originator has little or no chance at all to protect his work.

I am a freelance illustrator and my only source of income is the images I create. I have a family to support and bills to pay. If I manufactured, let’s say bikes and someone took one of my bikes form the warehouse and used it without telling me, how would you characterize that? Should the unauthorized use of images be treated differently?

I have been featured on design blogs all over the world. I take it that most of the people who are publishing my work there are very young. But they all have something in common – they contact me before or shortly after publishing my images and very often they write “Copyright Bo Lundberg” . What is it that they understand and that some publishers don’t?

Another aspect is that when I create an image it is commissioned by a client. They are paying for the usage of the images. To illustrate what can happen when people copy my images I would like to give an example. Once I had a call from a publisher in the US that I had done more than 80 illustrations for. They were extremely upset with me since they had found all my illustrations in another book printed in Asia and now they were contemplating on suing me. What had happened was that someone just ripped my images from the original book and created a whole new book, obviously without informing me. I managed to reason with the original client but as you might understand it was quite a situation to have been copied and then facing a possible trial.

I wish all the designers in Q8 good luck in your efforts. And to those who commission work I would just like to ask you to think twice before using an image without authorization. In the long run – who wants to work as an illustrator or photographer if you are not compensated and protected by copyright law?

Bo Lundberg

The reason I think we have a big problem here is because Bazaar is one of the biggest and most respected magazines in Kuwait. If they aren’t going to abide by copyright laws and set an example to the smaller publishers who will? They might as well do what Campus Cruise did and just take pictures off flickr and put them on the cover.




Categories
Funny

Chuck Norris Is Tough

[via]




Categories
Interesting Internet Links

100 Websites You Should Know and Use

I hadn’t heard the majority of these websites up until awhile ago. [Link]

via del.icio.us




Categories
Food Kuwait

The blooming onion

awesome blossom

Under my Beef Wellington post a reader asked where they could find a blooming onion in Kuwait. The only place I know that makes a blooming onion is Chili’s. They call it the Awesome Blossom.

note: yes it’s currently back on the menu and available




Categories
Automotive Information Kuwait Shopping

Dunlop Offer

dunlop wrangler

Since its my day off today I decided to go and change the tires on my Wrangler. After a bit of searching I landed at Dunlop and ended up getting my tires from there. I wasn’t planning to get Dunlops but they had a really great offer where if you buy 3 tires they give you the 4th for free. The offer is going on until mid September if anyone is interested and they are located opposite Ace Hardware.




Categories
50s to 90s Television

‘The Wonder Years’ Cast: Where Are They Now?

the wonder years

I loved the show The Wonder Years so I found this link on Digg very interesting. The most interesting part though is that I never knew Juliett Lewis, David Schwimmer, Giovanni Ribisi, and Dustin Diamond were on the show. I need to rewatch it all again. [Link]




Categories
Kuwait Personal Photography

Fire in my building

fire fighter

I was sitting at home watching TV when I heard sirens outside. They were getting louder and louder so I looked out the window and saw a bunch of fire trucks coming towards my building. I figured they must have taken a wrong turn but to my surprise the trucks started parking under my building and a crowd started to gather. I was thinking WTF? Their were 8 trucks, a cop car and an ambulance parked under my building so I figured something must be wrong. I took my camera and headed downstairs to see what all the commotion was about.

fire fighter

Once I got downstairs I saw the building keeper (haress) and asked him what was going on. He told me a store inside the mall (I live over a shopping mall) must have had a short circuit but there wasn’t anything to worry about. Fire fighters were running into the building with full gear on so I decided to take a few shots. Luckily the fire was put out quickly before any other stores caught fire.

fire fighter




Categories
Commercials

Smirnoff | Sea

Really cool… [YouTube]




Categories
Music Personal

War Stories

unkle

War Stories by UNKLE is the album of the year. My favorite song is number 7, Burn My Shadow. It fucking rocks. This album is wayyy better then anything I have recently heard including Smashing Pumpkin’s Zeitgeist. [Amazon]




Categories
Gossip & Rumors

The Hulk

the hulk

Geri Halliwell’s personal trainer is The Hulk. Seriously I mean look at how huge the guy is! [Link]




Categories
Music Personal

My tickets are here!

nin tickets

Late May I purchased two tickets to the Nine Inch Nails and Foo Fighters concert in Dublin and surprisingly today I received the tickets in regular mail! I had emailed Ticketmaster telling them specifically NOT to mail me the tickets because I was sure they would get lost in the mail. Magically they arrived to my mailbox and not only that, the tickets arrived before the concert date. The Kuwait postal service must have gotten a makeover.

update: My tickets were mailed out on June 12, they arrived to my PO Box on June 20th. One week from Ireland to Kuwait, thats really good.




Categories
Food Personal

Beef Wellington

Beef Wellington

Is there a restaurant in Kuwait that serves the Beef Wellington? Ever since the first season of Hell’s Kitchen I’ve been wanting to try it.

Picture by Jimsterpedia




Categories
Funny Geek Toys

The Cubes

the cubes

Fans of the The Office, The IT Crowd and Office Space will like this. Buy an army of employees and have them work in their cubicles for 8 hours straight and if you are in a really bad mood force them to work overtime.

In this office, you’re the boss!

Each set costs around $13. [Link]

note:
check out the job title generator




Categories
Information

Burnout Self-Test

Are you at risk of burning out because of your job? This is a quick test (just 15 questions to answer) to find out. With all the crazy load I currently have, I was surprised to score just a 49 which means I’m safe. [Link]




Categories
Kuwait

Are they allowed to take your passport?

Wasn’t there a law that got released that says companies can not take the passports of their employees? I thought that there was but I could be mistaken. The place where a friend works now are demanding all employees hand in their passports or else they won’t get paid. Do they have a right to do this?

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