Open letter to Gonzo-Asian.com [updated]
Journal Entry: Thu Aug 14, 2008, 4:30 PM
IN RESPONSE TO...~anan-desni has written the following:
Hi all, first, i would like to say I'm sorry for my foolishness *argh...how to put emoticon on this comment >_<*. Second, i'm not good in english, so i hope you can get what i'm trying to write in this comment.
I'm the webmaster of the site your all talking about. And yes, i've checked the picture and cross-checked with DA and i found lot of DA art has been rip. I'm not so interesting with design, cause i'm bad on it. When i upload those picture, i never checked if its genuine or not, so please do accept my apologies.
I'm ashamed of myself, so, from this moment, i'll check and check more those pre-upload picture.
I've been thinking to remove picture from they product that ripped from DA or elsewhere. In addition, please help my works by sending me email (anan2403@gmail.com) which product is categorized 'rip', i'll remove them immedieatlly.
Thank you for your cooperation.
PS:Yippy, now i have my DA account
13th of August, 2008
To the directive of Gonzo-Asian.com or ~anan-desni,
Since you took the initiative to contact us first through DeviantArt, I will respond to you through DeviantArt as well.
On the 8th of August, we became aware of your business in selling illegal merchandising and amateur artworks in Indonesia. By using these amateur artworks without the written consents of the rightful owners, you are violating all international copyright laws designed at the Berne Convention back in 1886, which gives copyrights to the artist automatically as soon as the work is created.
We, as amateur artists, have not formed an official statement yet, because not all of your "victims" have shared their thoughts about this and their followup actions. However, to settle this situation for starters, we demand the t-shirts featuring stolen artwork removed for purchase immediately. We also demand that you disclose how much profit you have gained over the years from selling our works.
If you request our aid in helping you to identify every shirt with ripped artwork, it will be sufficient enough to spend just one line of text to it: ALL your t-shirts contain stolen artworks. It does not stop at just the amateur artworks but you are also offering fake merchandising. Fake merchandising, like the unauthorized use of copyrighted artwork, is illegal.
Your company's claim of ignorance is dubious. The illegality of your actions tarnish the professionality of your company. By printing OUR designs on your shirts, the company benefits monetarily without crediting and compensating the true artists. If you maintain a professional and profitable company, you must at least know in what kind of business you are. Gonzo Asian is not just offering to print anything on shirts, it is also selling and gaining profit out of it. In that case Gonzo Asian needs to own all the rights, which it does NOT. This rule also counts for all the products involving official images from the big enterprises as well.
If Gonzo Asian is not willing to voluntarily cooperate with us, we are forced to take legal actions against the company; with international law at our side. We will also not hesitate to involve the big enterprises you have stolen from; the fashion labels, the Japanese rockbands, Mangakas and the gaming industry. Besides that, we will continue the negative exposure to Gonzo Asian as long as the situation has not satisfactory been dealt with. Putting Gonzo-Asian.com's servers offline will not stop us from taking actions, as we have screencapped and saved enough evidence to start a case against the company. Moreover, we have volunteers on location monitoring Gonzo Asian's activities.
This will not be the last statement from us.
Your message, as well as this message, will be posted on the mainjournal of this account.
signed by:
ph00nix
On behalf of the victims
Credits to Sabrina and ~sora-jigoku for proofreading and helping me out in writing this letter
Any Indonesian willing to translate (parts of) this letter, is free to do so.
To the directive of Gonzo-Asian.com or ~anan-desni,
Since you took the initiative to contact us first through DeviantArt, I will respond to you through DeviantArt as well.
On the 8th of August, we became aware of your business in selling illegal merchandising and amateur artworks in Indonesia. By using these amateur artworks without the written consents of the rightful owners, you are violating all international copyright laws designed at the Berne Convention back in 1886, which gives copyrights to the artist automatically as soon as the work is created.
We, as amateur artists, have not formed an official statement yet, because not all of your "victims" have shared their thoughts about this and their followup actions. However, to settle this situation for starters, we demand the t-shirts featuring stolen artwork removed for purchase immediately. We also demand that you disclose how much profit you have gained over the years from selling our works.
If you request our aid in helping you to identify every shirt with ripped artwork, it will be sufficient enough to spend just one line of text to it: ALL your t-shirts contain stolen artworks. It does not stop at just the amateur artworks but you are also offering fake merchandising. Fake merchandising, like the unauthorized use of copyrighted artwork, is illegal.
Your company's claim of ignorance is dubious. The illegality of your actions tarnish the professionality of your company. By printing OUR designs on your shirts, the company benefits monetarily without crediting and compensating the true artists. If you maintain a professional and profitable company, you must at least know in what kind of business you are. Gonzo Asian is not just offering to print anything on shirts, it is also selling and gaining profit out of it. In that case Gonzo Asian needs to own all the rights, which it does NOT. This rule also counts for all the products involving official images from the big enterprises as well.
If Gonzo Asian is not willing to voluntarily cooperate with us, we are forced to take legal actions against the company; with international law at our side. We will also not hesitate to involve the big enterprises you have stolen from; the fashion labels, the Japanese rockbands, Mangakas and the gaming industry. Besides that, we will continue the negative exposure to Gonzo Asian as long as the situation has not satisfactory been dealt with. Putting Gonzo-Asian.com's servers offline will not stop us from taking actions, as we have screencapped and saved enough evidence to start a case against the company. Moreover, we have volunteers on location monitoring Gonzo Asian's activities.
This will not be the last statement from us.
Your message, as well as this message, will be posted on the mainjournal of this account.
signed by:
ph00nix
On behalf of the victims
Credits to Sabrina and ~sora-jigoku for proofreading and helping me out in writing this letter
Any Indonesian willing to translate (parts of) this letter, is free to do so.
~anan-desni has written the following:
Thank you for the reply.
I just trying to make it crystal.
I'm not part of the company to making design, art, etc. And about 'legal and copyright' action people here talking about, honestly i'm not good at it since i'm away from the production part. They give me picture of the item, i upload it. That's it, my job stop right there.
Any comment, message and respond i'm write on DA, email, and this PM, its all belong to me, not the company.
What i'm trying to write here, i'm offering you a cooperation, not a self-defense, since i don't know if they gain more or less profit from the ripped thing and from this mess. I'm nothing to lose. But, my ignorant as i mention on the first comment should be repay for sure.
My action here is nature from my thought, they even don't know i've unpublished some item from the site. But, to unpublish all the items, i cant do that, cause maybe there is some 'real' design they owned.
When the item not listed on the site, nobody purchase the item i believe. So, im asking people to lend some information which item is ripped, so i can take them down from the purchase. I'll use my authority on the site to take down all the ripped cause i promise you nobody have admin access to the site but me.
About people taking action to involve bigger enterprises from the game, music, etc, it's all yours. I'm a gamers (a Tekken fan)and musics listener as well as you. I'm just offering what i can help to this mess.
I hope this message will clear my situations.
Thank you.
To ~anan-desni,
What has become clear is that you seem not the one to address our statement to. In that case, please direct us to the ones responsible for creating and selling the t-shirts with stolen artwork on them. We will address the same open letter to them in a more conventional manner.
Eventhough we have not yet identified every one of them, we can still point out those works by amateur artists ( e.g. K0225, K0185, K0184, K0179, K0126, K0106, K0103, K0096, K0081, K0083, K0095, K0076, K0059, K0028, K0027, K0022, K0018, K0005, K0002). However, just deleting the t-shirts of the website will not solve the problem of breaching the law, the existing products are just merely taken out of our sight.
Signed:
Ph00nix
MASSIVE ART THIEVERY @ GONZO-ASIAN.COMEdit: 13 August 2008 New information!! *Leversa send an e-mail to Gonzo Asian. This was their reply:
Us victims have still not heard a solution, so I decided to continue writing my letter. Although I wished I could have made the first move, it is now already clear to them that they have stolen from Deviantart. This will save me from writing that out in my letter. I'll soon post it on this journal, in hope for some good feedback to perfect it and to get it translated into Indonesian!!
Edit 12 August 2008 An letter/petition is in the making, but I'm seeking serious input from people who know how to deal with this kind of things. Thank you in advance! (Thanks *Majoor-Druiloor for the extra subscription month. I'll pay it back to you one day! XD)
Edit 9 August: OK, so far as I have thought of a strategy, the best thing to do for now is writting them a letter stating our problem, our evidence, our wishes and the followup consequences if they do not cooperate. This letter should be written in English and for insurance also translated into Indonesian (if someone is willing to translate) and of course signed by all the victims involved and all our witnesses (you). This letter should be send to them over e-mail, and if someone on location is willing to put it into their mailbox.. you will be most welcome!
The trump cards we hold as artists are the other companies involved in this scam as well. For example, the ones that got mentioned were fashion labels, j-rock bands, mangaka's and even game-companies! Maybe us amateur artists can lift upon their resources! This requires someone familiar with the labels and who can come through their spam-filters XD (~hellangel ?)
Next trump card is anti-exposure to this shop via an open letter to the most visited website by Indonesians in Indonesia: Detik.com! It will require help from someone who knows the Indonesian language though. Also, just negative exposure by us artists, telling your friends, your friends' friends etc. is already in process but that's one step that will help to change this situation as well!
So far I have not thought of anything better as this.
In any case: Thank you for all your time and help already, this much support makes me feel a little bit more at ease.
thanks banget atas kritikan dan saran-nya...
memang benar setelah aku cek...ternyata gambar2-nya diambil dari deviantart.
Aku akan sampaikan hal ini kepada tukang design aku, karena aku bebas terima design dari siapa-pun...
biasa-nya costumer langsung pesan dgn mengirim design kaos yang mereka mau.
Aku tidak tahu menahu mereka dapat gambar darimana, dan biasa-nya kalo mereka ditanya...mereka hanya jawab....Ini Design Aku Sendiri.
(rough) Translation:
Thank you very much from your critique and suggestion..
It is true..after I checked it, I just realized that the pictures were taken from Deviantart...
I'll tell about this to my designers, because I got the designs from everywhere freely..
Usually, the customers ordered the shirts by giving their designs to us...
I never know where they got their designs because when I asked them, they usually replies "This is my own design"
Hmm, I hope my translation is making any sense >.> If I made any mistakes, other Indonesian fellow, please correct me xD; *shots self for my awful Engrish* *Leversa
Us victims have still not heard a solution, so I decided to continue writing my letter. Although I wished I could have made the first move, it is now already clear to them that they have stolen from Deviantart. This will save me from writing that out in my letter. I'll soon post it on this journal, in hope for some good feedback to perfect it and to get it translated into Indonesian!!
Edit 12 August 2008 An letter/petition is in the making, but I'm seeking serious input from people who know how to deal with this kind of things. Thank you in advance! (Thanks *Majoor-Druiloor for the extra subscription month. I'll pay it back to you one day! XD)
Edit 9 August: OK, so far as I have thought of a strategy, the best thing to do for now is writting them a letter stating our problem, our evidence, our wishes and the followup consequences if they do not cooperate. This letter should be written in English and for insurance also translated into Indonesian (if someone is willing to translate) and of course signed by all the victims involved and all our witnesses (you). This letter should be send to them over e-mail, and if someone on location is willing to put it into their mailbox.. you will be most welcome!
The trump cards we hold as artists are the other companies involved in this scam as well. For example, the ones that got mentioned were fashion labels, j-rock bands, mangaka's and even game-companies! Maybe us amateur artists can lift upon their resources! This requires someone familiar with the labels and who can come through their spam-filters XD (~hellangel ?)
Next trump card is anti-exposure to this shop via an open letter to the most visited website by Indonesians in Indonesia: Detik.com! It will require help from someone who knows the Indonesian language though. Also, just negative exposure by us artists, telling your friends, your friends' friends etc. is already in process but that's one step that will help to change this situation as well!
So far I have not thought of anything better as this.
In any case: Thank you for all your time and help already, this much support makes me feel a little bit more at ease.
Dear friends and watchers on DeviantArt; As a fellow victim of this thief I feel the need to inform you all about a certain case. There is an Indonesian "company" called Gonzo-Asian that prints j-rock/anime artworks (most likely found on deviantart) on t-shirts and sells them for $15 -online- AND in -real- shops. The person behind this company used my artwork, without my permission, on his shirt and unfortunately, I am not the only one that got involved.
Browsing through his online webshop, I managed to identify more original artists on Gonzo-Asians' wares, who all are "surprisingly" members here on deviantart.com. However, being only really familiar with the Gazette fandom, I cannot trace all of the original artists back. More shirts involve fandoms like Dir en Grey, L'arc~en~Ciel, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Death Note, Naruto, etc. Is your artwork classified in one of those fandoms: It might be ripped off without you knowing it! If not: please, protect your work before it's too late! Don't be ignorant and think it won't happen to you!
Additional Information
OMG..that's...an Indonesian company...and they often open a booth when there's an anime convention in Jakarta or Bandung... =LunaticSupernova
I'm in the same city with the company right now), but I forget how to go there..eventhough I can go there, I don't have any courage to talk about art thief with them DX (yes, that company is one of a popular store for j-rock fans in this city) ~blue-ink
Gonzo Asian is networking on the community website Friendster: [link] We have a clear visual of the size of their costumer target group
Identified Victims 
..and probably more but I haven't identified others yet on .their shirt page. If you recognize any of the artworks and can match a Deviant Member on it: please let me know so we can determine the scale of this!
But what can we do about this?About dealing with this issue, I believe sending "just" an e-mail to the owner won't be enough. Usually I can take care of situations like this perfectly fine by my own. But this time I reached a point in my "art life" where I just don't know what to do anymore. That's why I'm trying to consult you guys. If any of you have experience in this kind of situation, please don't hesitate to share your knowledge with me.
BrainstormingOne thing I know for sure: Under no circumstances I offer my artworks for sale in any kind of form or shape. I gain no profit out of my work either, I just do it because I enjoy doing it. So if you see my artwork for sale in what kind of way possible, you've found yourself a scam, a thief and a lowlife who parasites on other people's hard work. Do not buy anything with this artwork featured on it if you support free creativity and respect other fans of the (Gazette) fanbase.
There's also a lot of H.Naoto and sexpot copyright stuff if we could get in touch with them somehow I'm sure they'd be brought down very quickly. Also lots of gazette stuff and they really don't take kindly to their stuff being ripped off. ~hellangel
I'd like to give a suggestion. You can write a public letter here (scroll to the bottom of the page). They will want you to fill in actual contact address and number. I gather if there is enough evidence, it will bring this matter to their attention. Detik.com is the largest online news portal in Indonesia and a lot of people read it. For any other Indonesian kids, you can try finding out other portal/news sites like this and if you can make the same formal, public complaint.
For the kid who said that the company is in the same city as s/he is, please collect their address, telephone number, and management names. If all else fails and they refuse to pay royalty or take out the designs, you can threaten them with a lawsuit. I'll find out how to sue them for a lawsuit. ~outlawserenade
Maybe, just maybe you could team up with others who have had their artwork stolen and perhaps pool enough cash together to do something legal about it? ~colored-wine
I have read about art theft before, some artists managed to contact the provider to take down the website or pictures of the thieves. ~holyvirus
I hope this stops, I think the least we can do is spread the message around to boycott that 'company' so that no one ever dares to buy anything from them, and continue to send them emails about their violation of universal copyright laws!! *oo4
I think the only way for me now is to send (hate) e-mail to that site's owner along with my fellow friends >.> I have been in a situation like this, but nothing can I done that time, mainly because the poor Indonesian law *Leversa
- Listening to: Natasha Farrow - Calling to the Night
- Playing: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
Journal History
- Aug 14, 2008 Open letter to Gonzo-Asian.com [updated]
- Jan 3, 2008 Happy Newyear & feature!
- Nov 8, 2007 Update, Design and Pageviews
- Sep 22, 2007 PC Update & Outrage!
- Aug 30, 2007 [edit] PC stopped functioning
- Aug 14, 2007 Aged but like New [+features]
- Nov 25, 2006 - Feature meme - [edit]
- Aug 10, 2006 + + 2nd Anniversary on DA + +
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Devious Comments
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Mah nem iz Holy. Holy Wakamoley.
All I can advice you is: protect your work. Watermark it. Make it impossible for anybody to steal it. and even then I can not gaurantee you that your art is safe.......
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Mah nem iz Holy. Holy Wakamoley.
But ARGH stupid people D8<
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........
I am indeed ashamed to be Indonesian >.> *grumbles to self*
Sorry to hear about this hon :'( I hope this will be solved soon >.>
I'll be sure to check the page..in case there are more ripped artworks >.>
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I love kitties! :3
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I support I am a free artist.
=Soulia~Chi-haru*MyouKun=Tooku-Mori*Wintersaga
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ayumi hamasaki- to be
／l、
(ﾟ､ ｡ ７
l、 ~ヽ
じしf_, )/
i am a member of ~animepaper
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ayumi hamasaki- to be
／l、
(ﾟ､ ｡ ７
l、 ~ヽ
じしf_, )/
i am a member of ~animepaper
the cause is, they think all images in internet are free to use >.>
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I love kitties! :3
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Manga on dA:"O Meu Doce Amor" : "Dramas da Vida Real"
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