First a quick summery…A female draws images for use on various produce (bags, cards etc). A large company licenses/buys those designs for product placement. The large company buys an image from an outside agency. This image appears to be a copy of the females original work. The originating female complains to the ‘large company’ who deny any plagiarism and send her away. The produce is then sold through outlets while the female receives no proceeds. Alleged names involved.. Large company: Paperchase, Outside agency: gather no moss. Art originator: HiddenEloise. For the full low down on this story see the telegraph article here . Please also see #paperchase and @HiddenEloise on twitter.
After reading the posts on twitter today I was curious to see how much of a match the two figures involved are. After all, there but for the grace go all visual artists!
I’ve done a very quick graphic in photoshop to see how close they match. Are the two images similar enough to be considered plagiarism? When I opened the graphics they were the same height and width…interesting. So i took the images off the backgrounds and superimposed them. The image on the bag seems to have been rotated 6-8 degrees counter clockwise. i.e. I had to rotate it that much clockwise to get a match in outlines. The shape of the top of the head is slightly changed. However, all angles of arms, legs, shape of dress, face etc appears to be an exact match – even the feet are exactly the same shape, size an angle. But what came first?..Chicken or egg? If it were me, and i ‘already’ had a toadstool image to put a figure against, i suspect i might ‘have’ to lean/rotate it slightly for placement and, if aesthetically pleasing for the design, shorten the head slightly. Coincidence? I’m not saying one way or the other. But, interesting that..if you took a tracing, placed it on a table and turned it 8 degrees you get a match? You make your own mind up. Please click on the image below for a larger view and more information. Sorry about the quality…it was just a quick go. In my humble opinion, a quick traced transparency would demonstrate any ‘alleged’ plagiarism 
Thanks. Julia
hiddeneloise and paperchase plagiarism copyright story on twitter. Please click the above image for a larger view.
UPDATE 13th Feb 2010: Hah! I was right. The ‘alleged’ plagiariser has made an admittance of ‘using the outline pose’ of HiddenEloise’s design. This is on her blog today…
‘”Dear Hidden Eloise,
I am happy for you to post this statement on your blog in its entirety.Please use all the images attached.
Im doing this off my own back in the hope that you will understand I have made a genuine mistake.
When creating the group of designs bellow I used the outline pose of your Hidden Eloise Girl in one of the designs to create a new pose for my princess. I did not intend to copy your character but use its pose to create a new design for my own character, my intention was not to copy your character, I now realise the pose was too close to your Eloise and apologise to you for this, I also apologise to paperchase for the trouble this has caused.”
There is still some integrity in the world. But is it plagiarism? Please see HiddenEloise’s blog for the full story.
