MICHAEL WHELAN • Before you buy that shirt… We have been...

Before you buy that shirt…

We have been experiencing a serious uptick in copyright violations recently, specifically in advertisements from “Fans of…” Facebook pages.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been playing whack-a-mole with a Dark Tower “community” that has been ripping off Michael Whelan’s KA symbol. I suspect this is the same group of thieves I had banned from Facebook last year for rampant copyright violation.

The ads in question are for t-shirts, mugs, etc printed almost exclusively through Teechip, a campaign driven t-shirt printer that has a disturbing number of alternatively branded websites out there.

If you see a Michael Whelan product that doesn’t look legitimate, please let us know and we can confirm whether the product has been properly licensed. We have a lot of fans doing this already and the extra eyes help enormously.

Was your artwork ripped off?

If you are an artist with a similar experience, please reach out and share the details of the copyright infringement.

I’m trying to open a dialogue with Facebook’s intellectual property department to see if we can find a better way to protect artist rights on social media. The more evidence I have, the easier it will be to get their attention.

This is something I’m doing on my own time as a fan, and I’m happy to share my experience to help others navigate the process.