Friday, February 18, 2011

Rip-Off Hack Job FAIL (IV)


Here's a hint
A while back I'd noticed that in a recent issue of one of my longest-running favorite websites, BartCop, that a local cartoonist's work who has a readily identifiable style appeared, sans caption and credit line. Regular readers know this is an recurring topic and one of my pet peeves. Cue hilarity: supposedly I'm now publicly shamed (see grab above) for calling him out on ripping off another Alaskan cartoonist, again. 
(more below the fold) 



Pretty funny response from Bart, but non sequiturs and straw men aside, even "a chimp" could look at the issue in question and quickly pick out the only cartoon without either a signature or caption. And no, there's actually only a dozen cartoons posted: the average number of cartoons per issue seems more like around ten, not 30-40. "Use your head boy" indeed, I also had to use my fingers.
One would think simply hitting "reply" to an email might have been an easier way for more info, and usually works better for such exchanges as these - but here's to a great reminder that everything you write on the series of tubes will eventually show up somewhere else at some point. Which works both ways.  

So yeah, my original email still stands, as BartCop appears to be running the work of cartoonists on his site and profiting off them without any permission or compensation. "Trust me"- debatable fair usage issues aside, at the very least being aware of what you put up on your own website is probably a bare minimum responsibility: now I'm curious as to whether or not any of the other cartoons reposted are legit. *Update: looks as if Slowpoke Comics by Jen Sorensen is also pirated. So now can I "be a dick"?
Not like I'm an "ArtCop" (thanks Peter) obsessively trolling the series of tubes for transgressions, but man do I ever hate this sorta crap. And for those of our viewers keeping score at home, here's the panel in question in it's full glory... (reposted by permission, eh)



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