Infringement is NOT hot, Paris Hilton.

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

How cheap does someone have to be, to find a listing for digital wing overlays and cut & copy the wings out from the preview image rather than buy them for a measly $6.99??

I got a message yesterday linking to an Instagram post from Paris Hilton, asking "are these your wings?" Yes, yes they are, and what is especially disappointing is it appears my wing image was cut from the listing graphic.

The listing is here: https://fancy-fairy-wings-things.myshopify.com/products/titania-fairy-wings-transparency-stock-png-files

That's right - rather than buy the legit files they happened upon, it appears this person instead copied the green wings out of my graphic, infringing on my intellectual property and violating my copyright.
I expect this is what they did because you can still see the edges of the yellow wings that are behind the green ones in my listing graphic and they included the wings in back on each side, which are in exactly the same position as in the graphic.

The files do not come that way.

I've sent a DMCA to Paris' merch store email, I've commented on the post as well as tweet at her and lots of other people have commented on this as well with no response.

Looks like another artist, Indg0 may have also been infringed in this image!

It's their background used here, without permission or payment according to Indg0.

I'm gonna need to see some order receipts if I'm wrong - and credit on the post - because there are no digital wing orders from her or anyone tagged in the post, which can be seen here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CE7-zZqHIG0/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

This is not the first celebrity infringement and I'm sure it sadly won't be the last as long as entitled wealthy celebs assume they can take whatever they want from indie artists due to their privilege and power. Paris Hilton's image is shown here in Fair Use, for the purposes of criticism, public commentary and communicating important news to the public about a public figure. For more of my experiences with copyright infringement, you can see my past blog entries by clicking on the Copyright Issues link on the right.

Oh and also? Just read today that she’s been heaping some praise on Trump, saying:
”He’s a very nice man. I think on TV people like to say things about certain people, but he’s actually a very sweet person. I like him a lot.”
GROSS.
She’s got an awful history of racist behavior as well, but somehow is still famous for being an heiress and the world’s first influencer.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/09/14/paris-hilton-praises-donald-trump-on-cnbc?source=twitter&via=mobile

Accessories Flash Sale Tomorrow, Friday Sept. 4 at 8am Pacific!

Surprise!
Well if you are a Patreon patron it’s not so much a surprise, but usually I like to announce things more ahead of time.
Tomorrow, Friday 9/4 at 8am Pacific Daylight Time, I’ll be listing all of the pieces below - 2 crowns, 3 hair combs and 3 each of the dark and light crystal Nightshade necklaces.

I’m never sure if any of these accessory pieces will be repeated because sometimes the specific settings & findings are unavailable after I’ve used a small batch, but I can tell you now I won’t repeat those tiaras exactly. That brass stamping was torture to solder to the metal band and although some of that was my own inexperience with soldering these types of things together, much of it was that type of stamping with no flat areas in back of it is just plain difficult to solder especially for a piece that needs to flex to be worn.
If it weren’t for an opportunity that unexpectedly came up, i would have jumped ahead by now to getting my own crown design cut from metal and am still moving forward with that.

Next time I offer crowns, they should be completely original pieces with a few added commercially available embellishments like jewels and their settings.
Need a link to the shop? Bookmark it so you won’t be late! https://fancy-fairy-wings-things.myshopify.com/

Dark Crystal Inspired "Nightshade" Fairy Wing Necklaces

I’ve tried a new thing with my mini wings!

I started on this project last year around the time The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance came out and these necklaces are very much inspired by the movie and series.
But, life got complicated and so like many of my developing projects they got put on the back burner for a while.
This is the Nightshade wing design, which sprung from my older Kira design. The wings are iridescent film and acetate that's been embossed with foil for the veins, and coated in clear resin, then attached to metal jewelry findings and further embellished with iridescent crystals.
I made one dark version with the Dark Crystal film & copper accents, and one light version with the Lilac film & silver accents, and will find out this week if they are something I can make a batch easily enough to offer to you all!
Yes there will be a flash sale soon with these necklaces and other winged accessories.
If you want a sneak peek behind the scenes of what I’ve been working on, you can join my Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/faeryangela

Flash Sale Tomorrow, Saturday July 25th at 9pm PDT

Sorry to keep you waiting, fairies!
It won’t be a huge sale, but there will be 2 of each of these listings, and I may be adding a couple more.
First the Fauna fairy wings in Dark Crystal with black veining.

The second design is the Datura, this time done in Autumn Night with black veining.
This film color has a strong orange and green reflection that changes quite a bit depending on the angle, as you’ll see here.

Both films have a sort of transparent black / grey undertone, with bright reflection colors.
Remember, tomorrow, Saturday July 25 at 9pm Pacific Daylight Time!

But wait there’s more! Editing this on 7/25 to add the Colette ‘Pix’ fairy wings!
One set of these will be available in the new Opal iridescent film with black veining.

These Colette wings have a very intricate lacy vein pattern cut out of black vinyl in addition to the main metal veins for a LOT of fine detail.
There will also be one of the painted “Blue Moon’ Colette wings, as you can see in a previous blog post here: https://www.fancyfairy.com/news/2020/3/5/blue-moon-colette-pix-fairy-wings

Clarion Fairy Wing Overlays - My Next Most Stolen Design

I had been planning to create digital overlay files of my Clarion fairy wings for a while now, for various reasons - some of those reasons are unhappy ones, but I am glad I finally did it!

Photo used is ©kharchenkoirina - stock.adobe.com

This is the first time I’ve made digital overlay wings that are light up! And frankly it’s been a while since we made real ones too but that’s another story - we’re working out how to make them with my new attachments.

There are 3 other color variations of these in the pack.

Now you may be thinking, gee these look familiar! If you are, I bet I know why - an artist on Renderosity had made 3D mesh wings she’s selling there, and I’m about 99.9999% sure she referenced my own light up Clarion wing photo to make hers since these are not based off any particular butterfly design.

Below is the comparison.

My wings on the left, the Renderosity wings by Fabiana on the right. Image posted in fair use, to comment on a newsworthy situation.

Yes there are some differences, a few veins were removed from the upper panel but the ones that are there are so specifically shaped and curved as mine - and the fact that she made the lights look as though they are fiber optic, like how my real life ones are made, is telling.

I did try to contact her, and never got a response. I wanted to ask more changes to differentiate hers from mine since I had already planned on making my own, and this kinda cuts into my profitability.

I even filed a DMCA with Renderosity, however they denied my takedown notice and made the judgement in her favor.
I guess not surprisingly, as she is a top seller and no doubt they make a nice profit from her content.
Didn’t think the platform was supposed to make a judgement on what constitutes as infringement but they did.
The only other thing I can do, is go ahead and make mine anyway.

And they’re available here: https://fancy-fairy-wings-things.myshopify.com/collections/digital-file-products/products/clarion-light-up-fairy-wings-transparency-stock-png-files

Oh but that’s not all! I’ve also made overlay files for the painted versions!
https://fancy-fairy-wings-things.myshopify.com/collections/digital-file-products/products/clarion-painted-fairy-wings-transparency-stock-png-files

Photo used is from ©kharchenkoirina - stock.adobe.com

Do these look familiar too?
If you’re thinking they look like Winx wings, I’ve thought the same thing. I created mine in real life in 2011, well before Winx came out with their Dreamix line and Stella appeared with some very similar looking wings.

If you look closely, rather than remove veins as the Renderosity wings, they’ve added more, but I can see some of the same veins in mine in their design.

Perhaps this one can be filed under the ‘inspired by’ category too, and since they’re in Italy I’m just going to keep putting my own design out there and if people have love for Winx, they can now turn themselves into one of their fairies with my overlays.
I haven’t even gone into the infringement hell that was my life the last couple weeks, as Twitter went absolutely nuts with what someone started calling the ‘fairy challenge’, posting pics of people side-by-side next to pics of wings usually with the caption ‘Did it work?’ - and yup you guessed it, the majority of wings they uploaded have been mine, and most often without credit as some of the Tweets and posts gained upward of 500K likes.
I think Stephen Colbert started this whole thing! Or at least that’s the first person I saw who did it.

Of course when I made my own to tweet, it got a fraction of that. Such is life!


I may consider bringing back the real life Clarion wings too. What do you think?

Protest Wings for Auction & Donation

*Edited 6/18/2020

Black Trans Lives Matter too.

We can’t support the movement for Black lives without also acknowledging that Trans people, even in the Black community, are discriminated against the hardest.
I’ve made 2 sets of fairy wings that were auctioned in my eBay store, and the profits went to the respective charities: The Bail Project and Transgender Law Center.
The auctions raised roughly $1,000 total for charity!
First, we have the yellow and black Pansy wings, to support Black Lives Matter.
The wings were hand painted digitally by me in the organizations' bright yellow and black, with a hidden 'BLM' in the black patterning.
I also painted that same wing style in the colors of the Trans flag - blue, pink and white.

Fairy Wings for Black Lives Matter. Auction profits will go to The Bail Project

Protest wings for Trans Rights, to be auctioned with profits going to the Transgender Law Center.

They sold on June 16 at 11pm in my eBay store here:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/the_fancy_fairy?_trksid=p2047675.l2559
 For the Black Lives Matter wings: https://www.ebay.com/itm/324199551766

For the Trans Rights wings: https://www.ebay.com/itm/324199566007

Remember to sign up for the VIP mailing list (to the right on this page, or bottom on mobile) to make sure you are updated of any changes.

Even though they are not industrial strength by any means, perhaps these wings will help with physical distancing at protests because remember y’all - we are still in a pandemic so be careful out there!

$408.00 from the BLM wings sale went to The Bail Project, and $396.00 from the Trans wings went to Transgender Law Center.

I also made an additional payment of $200 manually to Black Trans Travel Fund, for a total of $1,004!
I only kept the amount for the materials’ cost.
I also have been making a small automatic monthly donation of $10 to the Black Lives Matter organization, same goes for Planned Parenthood and Earth Justice.
Above are screen shots of the receipts for the donations I’ve mentioned.

I was also making the same monthly donation amount to ACLU but stopped after they continued to help neo-Nazis get their rallies approved and will probably be replacing that one with monthly donations to either Transgender Law Center or The Trevor Project.
I’m also looking into a Shopify extension to have a portion of each sale donated to charities.

Black Trans Lives Matter too, yet they haven't been getting as much attention even though they have the highest murder rate of any oppressed group.
I hope whoever wins them considers consciously what to do with them if they are white / cis / hetero and are not in the group for which they are advocating.
For example, if you're a Kardashian and want to throw money at the cause that's great, but maybe don't wear them to a protest since your fam has been accused of blackfishing so often.
You know.
Situations like that.
Maybe donate or lend them to a wonderful black / trans person in your life or an activist you admire who is not a Kanye West or Candice Owens. Because let's face it, they are not helping things.