The time Shepard Fairey was accused of stealing my artwork

On this episode of the podcast with photographer Thann Clark we have a discussion about posting artwork online and how easy it is to have it used or copied.

I put all of my artwork and music under a creative commons license so it's free to use and share as long as they give credit. And as we talk I share a story about a time that Shepard Fairey was accused of stealing my artwork.

Back in the '90s, one of the first album covers my band Lorenzo's Music did, was designed by the wife of a member who used to be in the band. She was a graphic designer. We were doing our first EP and she found this 1930s space-themed world's fair artwork from Chicago.

Vintage 1933 Chicago World's Fair Poster

It was a picture of a planet with a ring that swooped around it. And she was like, I want to design the album just like this! And I was like, that's fantastic! So she did.

Years went by, and then in the mid-2000s the band Bad Brains had Shepard Fairy do the artwork for the cover of their album "Into The Future".

I was listening to the album and looking at the cover and all of a sudden I'm like, wait a minute?! I turned it upside down and realized that's the design on our first album!

Bad Brains and Lorenzo's Music Album Artwork

And I'm looking at it going holy crap! Did they use our album artwork? That's awesome! I thought it was cool and I posted it on the band's website.

Next thing you know, it got picked up on Reddit and then a bunch of music and tabloid outlets started posting the story. All of a sudden these headlines were saying, "Did Bad Brains steal this artwork?" and all this kind of stuff. And I was like, I didn't say that. I just pointed out it was the same artwork.

Lorenzo's Music/Bad Brains news article

All of a sudden all of the people who like Bad Brains came out and they're just like hating on us!

And also this is what I didn't know. Shepard Fairey was actually going through the court case for the Obama hope artwork at the time and I had no concept that he was literally being sued for appropriating someone's photography and here I said this about him using our artwork. And everybody's like he's doing it again!

So Shepard Fairey actually called me on the phone! We had a really nice conversation about it and I said I just thought it was cool that Bad Brains had the same artwork as us. But yeah, we got bashed online because of that.

But also our listenership went up tons because of the exposure! We still got new band email list signups. So with the hating also brought people going, oh check out this band that's really cool! sort of thing.

Artwork for the original Candy Land game by Milton Bradley from 1955.

I have a vintage Candy Land game from 1955 by Milton Bradley and I was about to sell it so I thought I would add it to my personal art history course concept I've been doing . I'm going to try and see if I can find out how this game was created, designed and why? Here is what I found out about this game https://candy-land.fandom.com/wiki/Candy_Land_Wiki Candy Land is a board game about children exploring a world made out of candy and other sweets that originally came out in 1949. In every version of the game, there are a group of children that go through Candy Land. In the earliest versions of the game, it was a realistically drawn boy and girl. Drawing of the Candy Land kids I did on my phone ☝ https://board-games-galore.fandom.com/wiki/Candy_Land The game was designed in 1948 by Eleanor Abbott , while she was recovering from polio in San Diego, California. It's rumored that Eleanor also did the original artwork but I didn't find anything that

To Do: Multitasking My Business, Music, and Comics

Sometimes balancing my multiple projects can often feel like an overwhelming task. I sit and think out loud about the tasks I need to juggle this week from my vintage reselling business, my band, and my webcomic series. In this video vlog, I begin the week by prioritizing tasks and setting goals. I'm going to mark them as I go along. ✅ = Done ⏲ = Still waiting Vintage reselling business - The Pop Culture Roadshow With a vintage reselling business to run, the first order of business is to pack orders from weekend sales on platforms like eBay and Mercari. As I pack these items I need to record a 'What Sold' video for my Pop Culture roadshow YouTube channel , turning the task into video content. ✅ Pack orders ✅ List new items I got from estate sales (See my latest eBay store listings here ) ⛔ Create a new "What sold" video for my YouTube page (Recorded not edited - Laptop upgrade issues) Band - Lorenzo's Music I've also got a new song out this month so I nee

A quick peek behind-the-scenes of a new webcomic series. Coming soon!

I've recently paused my usual diary comic to dedicate my attention to an exciting new project—a fiction webcomic series featuring two characters that may be familiar to my long-time followers. These characters, Bobert and the Monster have made appearances on my website before , and now they're taking center stage. I'm working diligently with the hope of launching the series shortly. In the meantime, I'd like to share this behind-the-scenes video of the drawing process for one of the upcoming pages. Stay tuned for more updates as I bring this creative vision to life.

New song! Variation witch

Keeping up with my plan to release new music every month. This time around I venture into the punk blues realm. Sort of a mixture of The Black Keys and The Eels . This is a song called "Variation witch" by my band Lorenzo's Music . The cover art is actually an antique top that I have in my collection. What I liked about it was the striped disc kind of like something in a Tim Burton film.

Tom Ray

Search This Blog