Well, here's another sadly hilarious chapter in the ongoing saga of my poor East Side Lacrosse logo that — for those of you who remember — ended up on the cutting room floor.
This installment: Copyright infringement!
In Sept., I was contacted by a guy named Jonathan Leake from Northwest Indiana, who was starting a traveling lacrosse training organization called Steelheads Lacrosse, and was looking for a logo and some branding.
He found me because of this East Side Lacrosse branding. He loved seeing my process and the end result, and wondered about the cost to do something similar.
I sent him a very ballparkish quote, and asked if we could schedule a phone call, or Skype or Google Hangout session to chat more about the project. Never heard back after several followup attempts, so I assumed he didn't like my quote, and that he had moved on.
Last week, on a whim, I Googled "Steelheads Lacrosse," and then went to Images, and saw this.
It's a profile picture for a Steelheads Lacrosse Twitter account — yes, the very same guy who reached out to me about designing his lacrosse logo.
Basically, he didn't like my quote, so he outright stole elements of my East Side Lacrosse logo — namely the gloved hands and lax stick — and pasted them onto a (most likely also stolen) fish, and is using that as his organization's logo. What a dick.
Anyway, I sent him a stern cease & desist email, which has been unanswered, and I also made a detailed copyright violation report to Twitter. Twitter prepared a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice, but sent a followup email indicating that they "…have determined additional review is required and have escalated your report for further review. We will reply soon and provide additional information regarding any action taken."
Unfortunately, it's been 4 days, and I have yet to hear back from Twitter, and the profile picture using stolen components of my artwork is still up.
If any of you would like to publicly shame this asshat on Twitter, FB, or any other social media outlets for stealing my artwork, I won't stop you ;)