Pencil Skull Playing Cards on KS (Stealing artwork from Nicolai)

[Räpylätassu]

Just opening this thread to warn everyone here, this project is stealing artwork from Nicolai Aaroe's Indictus Playing Cards. Reported to Kickstarter, if someone has pledged for this project, drop out now.

[Timmargh]

Holy s##t, it's pretty blatant too.

[BaconWise]

Haha! I saw this and backed it for $1, simply to shit on his parade. Horrible attempt and I certainly hope this gets shut down. Nice catch, Roope!

I also sent Nicolai a quick message to see if he was aware. Who knows: maybe he gave the guy permission? Not a chance, lol.

[BaconWise]

UPDATE on "SkullGate"

hi, I'm writing about the message you left in the comments. We had no idea there was such a project, and certainly if we knew we wouldn't have wasted time creating such a project. I do not think we should talk about plagiarism, obviously these artwork can be found on the network, unloadable for payment, work that normally do some designers. I therefore find it inappropriate that you can comment on the page so aggressively, jeopardising the success of the project that people are enjoying...
we are talking about a project that has also achieved its goal, and I do not see how it could be harmed in this case. And back to the illustrations of skeletons, we're not talking about copyright violations or anything, but semicent artwork that apparently find themselves on the pay-net. We also find it inappropriate and unnecessary to threaten a project (our first project) on this platform.

MY RESPONSE

This project and your response is simply unacceptable. I will not apologize for the aggressive tone as I will never stop trying to improve the integrity of the playing card community. Here is a quote from your campaign:

"Illustrations are drawn by hand in pencil style by the artist Steo-barneo89art"

Had I not said something, you would have still passed this statement off as fact. Are any of the designs actually illustrated by Steo-barneo89art?

It is not an issue to use other artists' designs if you have received PERMISSION and properly compensated the artist. Just because you can find their images on the internet does not mean they are free to use or exploit in this fashion. Not to mention, the illustrations you stole were used IN ANOTHER DECK OF CARDS - the same kind of project you are attempting! I stand by my earlier comments. Blatant, shameful, and embarrassing.

CREATOR'S RESPONSE

Designs have been purchased! I don't understand what's wrong with all this. They're not Pinterest pictures to circumvent the artist! these are paid images! If there's another project with similar images, we don't feel responsible for plagiarism, since this project you mentioned, we didn't even know it, and I repeat, we certainly wouldn't have copied another project, what would it make?

Are we to believe the creator paid Nicolai for his artwork to use on a different campaign? No way. What is a "pay-net"? I will have to see what Nicolai says and if the rights were purchased for this project, I guess I will need to apologize....

[Decknowledgy]

Holy crap, and they had the nerves to justify their case!
Did you reach out to Nicolai for comments?

[BaconWise]

Yeah, I reached out to Nicolai and to Marianne. I am curious what they say!

[Harvonsgard]

First of, deck is kinda trash for me. Not a fan of that style.

To the part with the paid pictures; how could the creator have paid Nicolai for the artwork if he don't know about Nicolai?
Therefore, either he is straight up lying about having purchased the artwork or he got scammed by someone taking Nicolai's artwork and selling it to the creator.

[Decknowledgy]

Nicolai has responded, thanks to Jamie (Bacon)!
https://www.instagram.com/p/CBFmcijHP22/

Addressing Indicus/Pencil Skull. (Big thanks to NPCC, Jamie and others who have been kind to reach out to me about this). The illustrations aren’t stolen from me. My best guess is that they are bought as stock material on the internet. This style was originally presented online as a single face card concept. There are many of such examples: ‘Look! A card design idea!’ is something you see from many tattoo artists and other creative people. When I worked with this artist to finalise this style and concept I never thought of paying for exclusive rights to its use, and they soon became available as stock illustrations after my Indictus project. While that sucks a bit, there’s nothing wrong with it; an artist needs to eat too. I also openly state this notion about artist credit and origin on my project page. Since then, all my coop with professional artists have involved a deal of exclusive rights and terms of use. I have learned from my mistakes and I have built more confidence in my pre-pitch investments. Exclusivity costs more, but it also protects your project and idea from plagiarism, like Indictus is a subject to now. Not the illegal type I assume though, just the uninspired and (in my opinion) quite boring type that re-uses an already proven concept. If the creator of Pencil Skull claims to be unaware of me and my Indictus I think it is a lie, because he/she also copied texts and other elements from my project page on Kickstarter (like others have as well). Right now, I am even sceptic that the creator of Pencil Skull is even crediting the right person on Instagram for the illustrations. From what I understand, this creator is quite oblivious as to how and where he/she aquired these illustrations to begin with. This should be a red flag to us in terms of trusting this project as a whole. Think of it as you will. In my opinion this design project doesn’t expand or add anything of interesting value to the Indictus theme. One might even say that this quite litterally is a ‘bare bones’ project. EDIT: I see that the project is now canceled and the creator profile deleted.

[BaconWise]

First of all, Roope (@Räpylätassu) saw this way before I did, but I am very pleased this project was cancelled. I may have been slightly too aggressive with the campaign creator as it sounds like this "pay-net" does offer the artwork as stock images, but the creator was blatantly lying about personally illustrating the designs. It's misleading and insulting. Not to mention he was obviously attempting to re-create the Indictus campaign, court-by-court, and in some cases, word-for-word in the description. I appreciate Nicolai's response and realize Marksbart should have been included in the inquiries as it was a collaboration between the two of them. This is really an issue of community integrity.