not a new story, but this time happened to me

I knew THIS Ramones illustration I've made in 2009 was liked, reblogged and repinned since a long time around the web, through Tumblrs, Pinterests, blogs and other pages. Things like these always make me smile a little: you never know how far can go an image you made drawing like a crazy while you are in your small tiny studio in Bologna.
Of course the main problem is a lot of people never think about the decency of adding a reference under the image they like, so my little Ramones travelled around the world without my name.
When I've seen my works in a lot Facebook pages full of random stuff from the internet, I've thought maybe was time to start adding my name under my works, a sort of signature, even if I don't really like to see these kind of things (it looks so egocentric). I've started to add a signature on the new works but I never had time to add it on my old ones.
I know that everyone can delete it, but at least they have to modify the image with a software.

MY WORK:

RIP OFFS

Yesterday I casually discovered an account called sEndro used my Ramones illustration on his Society6 account, trying to sale it as a print, tshirt, canvas and more.
I immediately contacted the website (they have clear strong policy in term of Intellectual Property violation), they answered me very quickly, hiding the image and contacting the user. If you check his page you can see that it's a big copy and paste gallery of web finds.
Then it was like opening Pandora's box, I've searched "hey ho lets go" on google and google images and I've found a lot of (very ugly) manipulations of my work.
These is a collection, some of them made me lough for their ugliness.
Unfortunately I've also discovered a number of brazilian and australian websites where private users and a company producing mugs are sailing my work. I've contacted everybody immediately, some of them deleted the images others not already.
Right now I've contacted a lawyer but I think there's not so much to do in terms of a refound.

Anyway I wanted to write about this story, I know that is something that happens a lot in internet, even in worse ways (if you follow Gemma Correll's facebook, you know this kind of things are her everyday life) but I think is right to share our experiences and this freak show of rip-offs.

This brazilian shop called UZE didn't answered to my emails and they're already sailing a tshirt with my image:

At this point, I even feel lucky in a way (have you ever looked at the blog you thought we wouldn't notice?), since it's the first time that something like this happens to me. Moreover I would feel much much worse and sad if someone copies my personal style or my own ideas.

But who really knows what's going on in the other side of the planet?


P.S. I like Tumblr and Pinterest platforms, I love how they are, specially the messy infinite-parallel-scrappy-space of Tumblr, I like DIY and punk attitude, I'm glad if my work goes around the world, it feels I'm doing something good. I'm less happy when I see idiots making money with other people ideas.