A good friend of mine, and one of the icons in the paper toy world recently received an email from a douche bag. A recently USED douche bag. An ensuing conversation took place with Chris of Cubeecraft fame in blue and le douche in red. A word of warning though, if you get easily offended by grade A a**hats, you might want to sit down or hide the ammunition.

Transcript:

Hey,



I am a French dealer, I sell your creations on french websites.



I sold about 100 of your productions since the beginning of 2012.



Do you have Disney characters? My clients want Disney characters.



Thank you for your response.



Best regards.

What is your website?

Ebay: 



http://shop.ebay.fr/jaynoby/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686



And leboncoin.fr

I give the templates away for free, they are not to be resold!  

I have notified ebay about your infringements of my work and are letting the other paper toy artists know as well so they can do the same.

You have no copyright on these paper toys.



Well, you don't want to provide me the Disney characters, I'll look elsewhere.



But if you change your mind, you can send me samples printed to my address.



Vivacti Services

31 Rue du President Wilson

41200 ROMORANTIN LANTHENAY

France



Thank you.



Best regards.

Romain

I absolutely do, they are my artwork.  You took them from my site, print them and sell them. You are now asking me for more.

Ok I'll find other peoples, don't worry.

There are so many things wrong with this pr*ck. The thought of taking something created by an other and selling it without permission, is just the beginning. It just snowballs into a huge ball of WTF from there. But it puts a bigger problem front and center. The ease of which people in this day and age are able to, without any consequence, swoop in and steal intellectual property and then turn around and make a profit off of it.

Most of us gravitated to Napster when the opportunity presented itself, and even today there are similar ways to procure free music that artists have bleed for, and despite the fact that there is no real rationale excusing it, we still do it. But to then turn around and sell it out of the trunk of your car? I think that's a pretty well defined line to cross, and it takes a special breed of jerk to do so.

Well Romain is such a breed. He sees absolutely nothing wrong with theft and profit from such behavior. It's like someone robs your house and then comes back the next day, knocks on your door and asks if there were any HD TV's he might have missed. Fortunately, the spirit of creation, and the will of the artist is not easily extinguished. And bottom-feeders such as Romain have always been,and will always be a part of the game we have to navigate. I just hope more of them are like Romain in that he'd so foolishly draw attention to his activities and then let you know where he lives.

It's obvious we're not dealing with the sharpest knife in the drawer, and maybe he's just too stupid to realize the problem with stealing other's work and selling it for his own gain.

If you'd like to send a note of encouragement, or explore this amazing world of fan art for free, please head on over HERE.