In case I haven’t made it clear over the years, I’m not a big fan of the copyright-lawsuit model of enforcing artists’ rights. When somebody decides to be a dick and exploit the free availability of culture in bad faith, I feel like it’s much better to try them in the court of public opinion than in a court of law. So let’s do that to Chad Love-Lieberman.
Art4Love.com seems to have been around since March 2010, according to the first tweet on its Twitter account. It’s a store claiming to sell hand-painted canvas art, founded by Love-Lieberman as some kind of social capitalism thing. I have no idea; it’s a press release.
Art4Love and the related MarkYourSpot.com appear to have been taken down as of this writing. So let’s Streisand Effect this shit.
Yesterday, Digger artist Ursula Vernon posted on her LiveJournal a link to an article about Love-Lieberman and his “artwork”. She found it odd that this piece was attributed to him:
'Naked Mole Rat Dreams' by Ursula Vernon
It is, of course, by Ursula Vernon. And all of the other pieces in the article are by other artists from around the Internet as well.
Unsurprisingly, as uncovered by Tumblr user Kittenball, Art4Love was similarly fraudulent.
Screenshot of Art4Love.com, captured by Daunt
This
screenshot shows Art4Love allegedly selling “Honeycomb” by
Julie Dillon. They claim that it’s “Liquid Oil on canvas”, and was painted in 2009.
'Honeycomb' by Julie Dillon
This seems odd, considering the fact that
Dillon uploaded the piece to deviantART in 2010, under the category of “Digital Art”.
Hilariously, Art4Love was offering the “painting” with a Certificate of Authenticity.
Tumblr user Daunt has many more screenshots and videos related to Art4Love on her website. Many show more examples of misappropriated artwork, being sold as “original” for high prices.
It’s likely that Chad Love-Lieberman took down his network of websites because he doesn’t want this information getting out. This is precisely why it must. The threat of a copyright lawsuit does not protect the rights of artists to attribution and reputation; otherwise this never would have happened. The exposure of such exploitation on a massive scale is the best hope that artists have to be protected from it. Please, Internets: spread the fraud of Chad Love-Lieberman as far and wide as you can. Make his name synonymous with his crimes, so that anyone looking to commit such things in the future will think twice.
To the artists affected: don’t call this man an “art thief”. Art thieves are skilled, savvy professionals who bypass state-of-the-art museum security. Chad Love-Lieberman is just a plagiarist. And a dick.
Chad Love-Liberman’s Art4Love is a Fraudulent Plagiarism Peddler
In case I haven’t made it clear over the years, I’m not a big fan of the copyright-lawsuit model of enforcing artists’ rights. When somebody decides to be a dick and exploit the free availability of culture in bad faith, I feel like it’s much better to try them in the court of public opinion than in a court of law. So let’s do that to Chad Love-Lieberman.
Art4Love.com seems to have been around since March 2010, according to the first tweet on its Twitter account. It’s a store claiming to sell hand-painted canvas art, founded by Love-Lieberman as some kind of social capitalism thing. I have no idea; it’s a press release.
Art4Love and the related MarkYourSpot.com appear to have been taken down as of this writing. So let’s Streisand Effect this shit.
Yesterday, Digger artist Ursula Vernon posted on her LiveJournal a link to an article about Love-Lieberman and his “artwork”. She found it odd that this piece was attributed to him:
'Naked Mole Rat Dreams' by Ursula Vernon
It is, of course, by Ursula Vernon. And all of the other pieces in the article are by other artists from around the Internet as well.
Unsurprisingly, as uncovered by Tumblr user Kittenball, Art4Love was similarly fraudulent.
Screenshot of Art4Love.com, captured by Daunt
This screenshot shows Art4Love allegedly selling “Honeycomb” by Julie Dillon. They claim that it’s “Liquid Oil on canvas”, and was painted in 2009.
'Honeycomb' by Julie Dillon
This seems odd, considering the fact that Dillon uploaded the piece to deviantART in 2010, under the category of “Digital Art”.
Hilariously, Art4Love was offering the “painting” with a Certificate of Authenticity.
Tumblr user Daunt has many more screenshots and videos related to Art4Love on her website. Many show more examples of misappropriated artwork, being sold as “original” for high prices.
It’s likely that Chad Love-Lieberman took down his network of websites because he doesn’t want this information getting out. This is precisely why it must. The threat of a copyright lawsuit does not protect the rights of artists to attribution and reputation; otherwise this never would have happened. The exposure of such exploitation on a massive scale is the best hope that artists have to be protected from it. Please, Internets: spread the fraud of Chad Love-Lieberman as far and wide as you can. Make his name synonymous with his crimes, so that anyone looking to commit such things in the future will think twice.
To the artists affected: don’t call this man an “art thief”. Art thieves are skilled, savvy professionals who bypass state-of-the-art museum security. Chad Love-Lieberman is just a plagiarist. And a dick.