Here we go again with another celebrity infringement of my work

A follower alerted me to my ripped off Kira wings image showing up in Kendall Jenner's Instagram Stories today.

Celebs, please stop sharing edits from anonymous fans & when you're notified it's infringement, REMOVE IT. Doesn't matter if you made it or not, you're accountable.

Yes I sent everyone with an email contact a DMCA including Instagram. Speaking of uber wealthy white celebrities, Paris Hilton is still ignoring my notices btw. Before you say it, no I'm not flattered at all, I don't want to collab with either family for many reasons.

I don't currently or in the future give this family or Paris permission to use or display my work, it needs to come down now. I would appreciate a public correction but I know not to hold my breath for accountability that way.

This harms my market, as I sell legit digital overlays of this same design directly to the public, but even those have a LIMITED license for use - and the number of followers she has would violate those terms, as well as the fact they showed up with zero credit to me.
I have no record of them being purchased by any of the people that posted it.

My full terms are included in the description of my listings as you can see here: https://fancy-fairy-wings-things.myshopify.com/products/kira-fairy-wings-transparency-stock-png-files

This was likely pulled from my old Etsy listing here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/165305210/giant-kira-fairy-wings-in-your-custom?show_sold_out_detail=1&ref=nla_listing_details

If you want to help, please don’t flood her posts with comments because all that seems to do is increase her traffic and they may ignore them.
Instead, please share this blog post. Unfollow people who infringe on artists and their supporters who look the other way.

That's Not Hot Paris Part 2 - Copyright Hullabaloo

*Update: As of February 2023, the legal issue between Paris Hilton and myself has been privately resolved

*Edited Dec. 19 2020
See new developments at the bottom!

Unbelievably, no joke, I woke up this morning to find that I’d been infringed on a SECOND time by Paris Hilton on social media - yeah I know, it’s probably her team bla bla bla Paris Hilton as a company and as a social media influencer is responsible for what happens on her accounts. PERIOD.
It doesn’t matter if you didn’t do the copying with your own hands, if you approve it and you post it, and you’re told it’s infringing but don’t remove it, you are willfully infringing now.

Screenshots from @parishilton shown here for the purpose of information and commentary of a public figure, under Fair Use

Screenshots from @parishilton shown here for the purpose of information and commentary of a public figure, under Fair Use

This same design from a different pic of mine, taken from the actual display graphic for my legit overlay wings rather than purchased, was used by Paris just this September. That incident is documented here: https://www.fancyfairy.com/news/2020/9/17/infringement-is-not-hot-paris-hilton

ParisHiltonInfringementScreenshot.png

The wing photo of mine that’s infringed in the first shot is from my old website that isn’t up anymore, but here’s a screenshot of a FB page post of it.

Screen Shot 2020-08-03 at 9.38.02 PM.png

“But I’ve seen these online before!” you’ll say.
And you’d be right.
They’re still taken from my original photos however, and I own the exclusive copyright, which they have no right to do no matter if it’s been one year or ten since I made it. You might not know this but copyright lasts in the US for at least 75 years after the death of the author and in some cases it’s longer than that if it’s a business registered or estate.
I know there’s an organization out there that’s trying to argue they can do what they want with my work because 10 years have passed and they’re sorely mistaken, but that’s another story.

Yes these particular wings were made notorious, and a nuisance I can’t shake off ever since Maryneim on DeviantArt stole my photo years ago and made them into clip art. I think now she goes by Mary Lau or something else, either way she started a big mess and never cleaned it up so she’s on a permanent ban from every using any of my work for any reason among other people.


Next thing you know, other people are stealing from her and uploading them too, and it has been a vicious cycle ever since.
In fact, because Nikki Lipstick infringed on those same wings a few months ago, I became determined to scrub them from the internet, and I’ve finally found some success. They no longer come up with the search terms she told me she used, and if they do it’s well after you see my own, and hey good luck with whatever virus you’ve just installed on your device if you do decide to use stolen goods once you finally scroll down to those shady free art sites.

So it’s almost 4pm Pacific time now, and although I’d gotten an email from Megan Fargo at Paris Hilton Digital, the content’s all still up even though she knows I want it down, even though I’ve sent a formal DMCA to Megan and the other official Paris email address.
Megan wrote:
“Hope this email finds you well,

This is Megan from Paris Hilton Digital, we have been looking into your posts about Paris's use of your wing designs & would like to address some of your concerns.

Paris does not make any of the edits of herself on her own, they are all fan made edits that she loves & reposts, she always credits the fan who made them & if the fan indicates any other tags she will tag them as well.

I have reached out to the fan who made the edit with the wings & she has confirmed with me that she had gotten the wings off a free PNG site, please find the sources attached below”

She signed off and that was it.

Surprisingly, December 17, Instagram removed Paris Hilton’s post in response to my DMCA notice! This was very unexpected, as past attempts had failed in even the most blatant infringement cases, and I hope this trend continues next time I need to report. Because there is unfortunately always going to be a ‘next time’.
I am curious if this recent Supreme Court case decision had anything to do with it?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/dr-seuss-enterprises-wins-appeal-in-dispute-over-star-trek-mash-up?fbclid=IwAR3wwUK2Z3B0UJOHcDAg_vmyDQJUAQ8tgGLxuvmfvtdNW_uSqnz6ltXlTcg

Screenshot of the email from Instagram notifying me that the post had been removed.

Now I’m just waiting for a response from Twitter and Facebook, let’s hope they also act.


As for Nikki Lipstick:
Bit of a hypocrite if I must say so myself, since she’s called out DollsKill and others for infringement of her designs in the past that were far less blatant than what she did herself.
She actually admitted she knew of my work already and claimed she ‘checked’ to make sure they weren’t the same before downloading the illegal free copy, and thought somehow that excused her.
I’ve slept on blogging this one because she got her minions to lie about what happened and still has some of those lies on her IG posts, got her friends to insist the wings were never mine, to save face without real apology or accountability. And she still has the FB Dollcult group post up without attribution even though she went back to talk about me as ‘fairy lady’ after I repeatedly asked her to remove everything: https://www.facebook.com/groups/281976223234482/permalink/288330002599104

Screenshot from the Nikkilipstick Instagram account for the purpose of information and commentary, under Fair Use

Screenshot from the Nikkilipstick Instagram account for the purpose of information and commentary, under Fair Use

I don’t believe for a second that she really thought the stolen version were originally by someone else entirely, as she was not honest in her conversations with me even if she does post a stream of empty pseudo-inspirational quotes and kissy lip GIFs.
You don’t have to take my word for it, I kept all the receipts and I mean alllll of them. So I may leave out the less important ones that don’t add any real info or repeat it but I have no problem showing more when I have time.
First we have her comments to people who were asking about their source on her IG posts. Crossing fingers these stayed in the right order.

There was an awful lot of additional BS she pulled, generally misrepresenting what happened to make me look like the bad guy wherever she could and her followers were sent over to harass me to argue that the wings weren’t even mine. I’m not going to give them all the satisfaction of showing their trolling tweets but again, I’ve got ‘em if you need to see them and most are probably still up over there.

I went ahead and sent more DMCA’s to Nikki (aka Nikki Winters) to remove that last one in her FB group but she’s ignored me, and was too busy making vaguebook passive aggressive posts about the situation. She has enough social capital and power to convince people of her status as victim in every story and now, she’s even felt the need to name one of her eye shadows ‘fancy fairy’.

Just to drive the point home how not completely ignorant she is about these issues, just as Paris shouldn’t be, here’s some flashes to the past of Nikki’s own copyright accusations, accusations which hang by slim threads where her ‘designs’ are hardly her unique designs at all. Yet she felt she owned these things and is the same person who tries to deny me my own right to my IP.
I am not familiar with this site or these people, but the links do take you to Nikki & friends’ own posts, where I can see that the copyright claims she is trying to make are on things like a sad face, which is too basic and old a concept for her to own, or pink feather puffs, again stuff that’s not very unique at all:
https://lolcow.farm/snow/res/101821.html

Let's Talk About Copyright & Proper Credit as Makers

On Thursday Dec. 10 to my dismay, I saw that a woman I’ve known for almost 20 years had entered a photo of herself into a Princesses With Power Tools calendar sold by Reinvented Magazine, wearing my wings, and presented as a wing maker. With no attribution for my wings, even though the photo shows her working on wing panels and initially, the profile described her as someone who ‘makes fairy wings that really flap’. Even without that text, it visually implies she’s the wing maker here.
Below you’ll see a screenshot of the calendar page posted yesterday, and below that one of my old wing listing photos for the wings she is wearing.

Screenshot of the page from Reinvented Magazine, shown in Fair Use for the purpose of commentary and education

Screenshot of the page from Reinvented Magazine, shown in Fair Use for the purpose of commentary and education

TinkSwirlSide2.jpg

I sent Reinvented an email Dec 10 at 11:59am Pacific, simply asking for credit as I felt, and still do, that the photo could imply that she was wearing the wings she makes herself since she’s also shown making wings. My initial email is below.

Screen Shot 2020-12-11 at 4.54.07 PM.png

I got no response at all from Reinvented until early Friday morning, but they found the time to discuss this with Erin roughly a half hour after my email was sent, and Erin contacted me to assure me it was all fine because it’s ‘just a photo of her in my wings’. No apology or offer to address it in any way, and I got no further response from her since. Obviously it was not fine.

FirePixieBlurredScreen Shot 2020-12-10 at 12.50.04 PM copy.png

I emailed Reinvented again, at 12:48pm Pacific, right after I got that message from Erin, asking for a direct response to me.

I mentioned a copyright issue with a Princesses With Power Tools calendar in my Instagram Stories, at first without naming or tagging anyone. It explained how disappointing it was and briefly described the problem

I did tag their account in an Instagram Story later Thursday night asking for a response, since It’s been my experience that if an organization doesn’t want to address us, they will if the request to respond is made public. Meanwhile they were taking orders for this calendar, so this needed to be brought to attention. A few people said they commented on their calendar post asking to have me credited, but each one was quickly removed, they wanted to blame their lack of response on everyone being busy but they sure had someone working for them to delete inquiring comments no matter how polite, rather than respond with even one sentence to me.

Below are screen shots of those Stories.

Reinvented was silent all through the night, so it seemed I was going to be ignored.

At 7:31 am Friday morning I got an email from Caeley at Reinvented, she let me know that she deleted the text about wing making from the page and calendar, but let me know she did not feel responsible for anything further without a licensing agreement between Erin and I, which is not even necessary nor applicable to this situation at all. She made statements about patents, trademarks & garment exclusions from copyright, none of which have anything to do with my copyright on my wings, which I register with the US Copyright Office. This specific set was not, because I haven’t had issues of infringement with them until now, but it’s irrelevant because I still own the copyright on them. They are my own design and not the movie version.

Copyright ownership is created as soon as the design is, to require legal registrations seems to communicate to me that they are only concerned with whether or not they will be sued for it rather than whether or not it’s wrong - which it was.

Reinvented Blurred Screen Shot 2020-12-11 at 11.02.11 AM copy.png

This statement Caeley made was especially concerning:
”As of right now we are not aware of any license or agreement that would forbid us from using your projects or displaying the results of your wing tutorials in our calendar. We also were unable to find any attribution requirements related to their original purchase. However, if there is a limited use license associated with photos taken by third parties of your wings, please send that to us immediately so we can make the necessary corrections.”
It sounds like they think they can use whatever they want unless they see a license agreement forbidding it, and that’s not necessarily true in every instance.
The use of someone else’s IP to give the impression that you’re responsible for creating it is still plagiarism.
Below is my response to their email.

I did post a screen shot Friday on Twitter that erroneously showed Caeley’s phone number and email, which I did not realize was a private one since it was coming from an organization she’s the CEO of. I didn’t know phone numbers are protected on Twitter like that either, so that screen shot did get reported and removed, I didn’t appeal it because I don’t intend to give out anyone’s private info and I apologize for that oversight. It’s been removed and I can’t access it again for you.
Anything else on Twitter about the issue should still be up.
The screenshot in this one has obscured that info.

Below are the Stories I posted on IG after I got the email from Reinvented, Friday around 11:30 am. The one from Friday night where I asked Reinvented to please respond to my request for credit, I had deleted after they responded to me and I guess it deletes those from the archive too, so that is the only thing that’s missing as far as I can tell.

Now, ultimately, the fault lies with Erin, who I’ve known for almost 20 years and who has lightly stepped on my toes through the years when it comes to copying my wing work, I didn’t say anything when she posted about ‘her’ wing prototypes, which seemed to be made exactly the way I teach in my tutorial, a post in which she said she’s making her own tutorial for flapping fairy wings.
Last year after Maker Faire, when I posted new video of the flapping wings Jordan worked on for me in 2016 she even asked if she could help us with our flapping wing project and I welcomed it.
But she must have changed her mind, and none of these WIP tutorial posts or even her own posts on social media of herself in my wings credited me in any way.
Below are her public posts, and receipts of her request to help with the flapping wings Jordan worked with me on in my post last year after Maker Faire in the SF bay area.

She’d been fascinated by our flapping wing project ever since we started, years ago. She’s stated she’s been trying to figure out how to make some for years, but hadn’t been able to yet with all her experience. Meanwhile, Jordan figured out an elegant and economic solution with zero formal training or previous experience, learning how to code in his free time when he wasn’t working as a graphic artist. Below, the first posts of our prototype flapping wings and her share of them.

She did experiment some on her own (below), however with a different type of construction. Although someone knowledgeable in animatronics might figure out that it was a 2 servo construction by the way Jordan was holding onto the motor (above), that wasn’t completely apparent until I posted the video of myself in them at Maker Faire in 2019 and showed the exposed mechanism.

I mentioned my concern to Adafruit after 11pm Thursday night, as I was worried Erin would continue this trend of trying to take credit for my work when she makes her wing tutorial, and she lists herself as working for them. I believe my concern was valid based on her reaction and refusal to address this properly, as this choice of photo and omission of my name now seemed intentional plagiarism rather than accidental.
In order to be completely transparent, here is my email to Adafruit below as well, along with their response to me, which I felt was fair and professional. For the record, because I’ve heard of people getting their screenshots removed for showing even their OWN email that was reported as private, mine are info@fancyfairy.com and faeryangela@gmail.com. I’m sure I’ll get more junk mail but there ya go.

Their new post shows Erin’s new photo with my wings removed and hers added in - a lot more effort than simply adding a credit tagline, but okay. I’m glad for the change.

They’ve now made a post without naming me, but claiming my issue was with her costume, which it isn’t, and stated that I felt that ‘reproduction’ of my past products in commercial print is a violation of my copyright. Well, if someone DID actually reproduce any of my designs, it’s copyright infringement.

They’re now playing victim with no accountability for how they handled this either, accusing me of slander, & doxxing, and this is also inaccurate.
I did make a mistake as I didn’t know that was a private phone number, but slander?
It has to be false to be slander. I have not lied about anything.

I’m being painted as someone who demands credit in any photo where any of my wings are shown at all times, which isn’t true at all.
Reinvented’s IG post is shown below, with the newly edited photo using Erin’s wings, which is honestly how it should have been in the first place if she was so against crediting me.

This particular type of use was clearly inappropriate and misleading. Costume makers don’t pose for publicity photos sitting at a sewing machine wearing someone else’s dress, and if you’re promoting yourself as a wing maker don’t advertise in someone else’s wings without attribution.

Last but not least, this is the last email I sent to Erin Thursday at 4:30pm after she made clear she didn’t care to credit me in any way, and no surprise, I got no response since.

Screen Shot 2020-12-13 at 2.29.09 PM.png

Keep in mind when I say it may not warrant legal action, I mean because I don’t even want to and never implied I would, not that this would never hold up legally as a copyright violation. A court may have seen it as a violation of my copyright, we’ll probably never know, because it’s not worth it.
But making sure you have the truth is worth it, to me. Even if you still think it makes me look bad.

*BTW I don’t mind people commenting their opinion, but I will take down comments that contain misleading misinformation about copyright or lies about this situation.

*Edited at 3:42 Sunday Dec. 13 to make some sections more clear and to add screenshots. I like to be completely transparent about these things if I’m being accused of something as serious as slander or ‘terrorism’.

Additional info

*Edited 12/26 to add that Reinvented Inc. seems to be noncompliant with registering their organization with their state’s regulatory body.
At the suggestion of someone with experience being on voting boards of 501c3 non-profits, I tried to look them up to make sure there wasn’t more than just IP issues they were being opaque about and there is no record in Florida’s check-a-charity.

ReinventedCheckACharityCensoredScreen Shot 2020-12-21 at 11.26.14 AM copy.png

I wasn’t sure what this might mean, so I used the site’s chat function to ask someone.
I was told by the agent that this is a red flag for donors.

Above was my chat with the agent. I’ve blurred out any addresses and phone numbers, even though much of the info is public record as is required for all nonprofit 501c3 corporations. I would never share a private address even if I had a legal right to, if one was used to register with.
Remember, 501c3 nonprofits are required to provide their financial & tax records to whoever asks to see them, so that’s an option if you are nervous about your donations whoever they are going to.

*Edited further 2/24 to add the screenshots of our early prototype posts and Erin’s.

Adafruit has assured me that they will be crediting me for inspiration for the wings and linking to my tutorial video, which I very much appreciate since we still feel her tutorial came about through unethical behavior. I’m glad they have the integrity to credit even if she won’t.
Especially since I’ve learned that most of the construction of the new flapping wings for them is done by someone else:
https://twitter.com/ecken/status/1357375971482034176?s=20
It appears Erin made the code (we had code for ours already), the wing panels, which I obviously could have provided and putting a video tutorial together, something we also could have done.

One more thing people might want to look at, is Erin’s very recent cultural appropriation of indigenous facial markings and other elements in her cosplay of a fictional ‘barbarian’ group of white women she and her friends made official accounts for & smells of white feminism.

The FB page was removed within a day after I posted about it, but although the Instagram account is still up, most photos were deleted.
Perhaps someone else removed them, because Erin still has those photos up publicly. Though she switched her profile pic today, just yesterday it was still a photo of her with those facial markings.
With that response, my guess is she cares about cultural appropriation as much as she cares about the rights of fellow artists - zero percent.
Screenshots below of the FB page description for her group ‘The Horde’ before it was removed, the Twitter account, as well as photos that are still up on her Instagram. The photos on her Facebook timeline are still there as well.
Although there’s a common misconception among cosplayers that the chin stripe was a Nordic, Celtic or Viking thing, it is not. It’s used by Indigenous people in the Americas, by the Inuit, and various tribes in Africa and Asia. None of which are her heritage.

The Right and Wrong Way to Handle an Infringement Notification

*Edit 12/21/2019
This issue seems to be resolved. After sending a C&D to 3DUniverse, we came to an agreement and the infringing content has been removed from the marketplace and they have been very amicable, which I appreciate!
They’ve informed me that the copy of my design was first obtained through publicdomainvectors.org, however, it can no longer be found on that site.
I’m taking it on good faith that is indeed where it was first found, though there is no hard evidence or receipt, so this is where this issue ends with 3DUniverse, however I will still be demanding removal of any copies of the wings being redistributed that were created with the infringed content in the Mythical Pixie package via the extended license that was offered.
~
It happened again, of course, I was minding my own business on Etsy just browsing for gift ideas and saw that one of the things in the “things you might like” section of the home page had a very familiar silhouette. I opened it up and sure enough, my Titania wings had been copied in a $2 pack of wing png files :/

I purchased a set of the wing pack just to make sure, and it was definitely a copy of my Titania wings - a design that I also offer digital files of myself, so this was in direct competition with my own product!
I left a negative review, because not only was my design in there but I recognize a few others of these wings as well, from stock I’ve seen offered by other sellers. Most of the time, stock providers don’t allow their customers to simply redistribute the same stock, so whenever I see sellers offering mostly other people’s content my alarm bells go off.
I then got an angry message from the seller, telling me it’s certainly NOT my content, because he purchased it from 3DUniverse on DAZ3D!
Well, he was right about one thing, it as of now is still available in a pack for a Pixie character and what’s worse is it has an extended license available to allow customers to do exactly what this seller did, and sell 2D renders of all the content >:(
This is incredibly frustrating and disappointing, since 3DUniverse appears to be a fairly big company with well known clients, and they claim that all their designing is done in-house from concept to completion.
Someone along the way decided to simply swipe a design off the internet - mine - instead of creating something new, and now who knows how many people are out there having paid licensing fees for wing files they thought were legit and won’t be able to use.

Sadly, the Etsy seller, even after informing him of 3DUniverse’s infringement and providing my US Copyright certificate registration number, still insisted he had the right to continue selling the copies of my content.
A DMCA did take care of that, and the listings are now gone, but due to the willful continued infringement & his refusal to abide by my demands as the copyright holder, that review will stay.
Please, if you see this wing design anywhere else but in my own Shopify or Etsy stores, let me know.
Currently I don’t have them on any other platform. If I do in the future, my name will be attached to it and linked to my brand. If you like that wing design, I have them for sale in my store and you can rest assured they are the real deal: https://fancy-fairy-wings-things.myshopify.com/products/titania-fairy-wings-transparency-stock-png-files

It’s similar to the defiant attitude I’ve encountered with another person, after she made wings using my tutorial but used one of my original designs rather than the real butterfly design I provide for that purpose.
I made every effort in that tutorial to make it clear that copying designs found online is not legal and disrespects the artists being copied. I even included links to a couple of IP attorney’s websites so people could educate themselves further about what is okay and what’s not.
I had asked her to please edit the caption to let people know that particular design should not be copied as it’s my original, and was told she would, but instead the caption read as if I gave permission for and taught how to make that particular design!
That will not do, so I asked again, but instead of doing so she insisted it didn’t matter because most of her followers aren’t there for her ‘artisticness’ and she got them off of Pinterest.
I reminded her that copying something off of Pinterest is exactly what I instruct people not to do in my tutorial! It’s mentioned in the first 2 minutes before the tutorial portion starts, and regardless of where it’s found it’s still my design.
She told me she removed it ‘just to make you feel better’, but hid her profile from the public so I couldn’t verify it, until this weekend when it went public again and I could see that she had lied, and the post was still there with nothing changed.
Fairies, please don’t ever do this.
It doesn’t matter if you found the content by accident or false advertisement, you still have to respect the original copyright holder’s wishes and comply with what they ask of you. It still affects our business negatively, whether or not the copy is being sold.
Publicly displaying wings made from my tutorial that copy one of my original designs that I didn’t allow only gives others the impression they can do the same, possibly leading eventually to someone deciding to sell them as well.

I had hoped to have some more items to list today for sale, but every infringement dealt with takes the wind out of my sails and delays my production.
There was another seller on Etsy selling wing stock of my Teasel design as well, they at least suspended the listing however they insisted they purchased them with a license without being able to tell me yet who they purchased it from.
If you are professional business selling third party content, you really should have record of everyone you purchased a license from. These things happen all the time - they even said it happens to them - so any graphics business should know better than to not keep track of purchased content they are reselling.
It could be true, but it could also be a bluff, since initially they said “we must insist these overlays are not copied and have been made by us! The fairy wing design is very simplistic and is used by many shops for their overlays”. It’s somewhat of a contradictory statement, so which is it? Made by you, or purchased by you from elsewhere?

My designs are quite popular and some older ones especially on Pinterest that have lost the original links to Polyvore or my old website are still around, but again, everything on Pinterest belongs to someone.
Just like every image on Google belongs to someone. Search engines are not image banks for our use, and even image banks sometimes contain infringing content. It’s sad but true.
We really have to thoroughly vet everything. If there is no consistent style or quality to the seller’s collection or you’re seeing content from them that you’ve also seen elsewhere, keep digging to find out if that is truly the original artist.
Tineye.com comes in handy for this purpose, though if it’s not the same exact photo it might not show up in the results.
The best way to make sure what you’re selling is safe, is to make it yourself from scratch, or from nature.
Or, from an artist with a history of creations that you can track, like me.