This is by no means a rare occurrence. I find them regularly, when I can be bothered to look, and if someone sees one and alerts me to it. But find them I do, and many of them — in the last handful of years alone, I have found around 70, and those are just the ones I’ve known about. I don’t even know if I have the stomach to look in the cesspits of hyper-shite, Temu and Wish, to see what might be festering away over there. (OK I just went and looked — filed one report, couldn’t see any more).
Etsy has a much-improved system for reporting sellers (Redbubble’s is more hoop-jumpy — I always feel like they’re rolling their eyes while I’m filling the form in) but I prefer in the first instance to contact the seller directly, tell (not ask) them to delete the listing and all listings which use that image, the take them to school on why using other people’s artwork is copyright violation etc. I did once secure the profits from the sales of a product that had sold in great quantities, with those sales numbers shown clearly in her shop; I didn’t enjoy how scared she sounded, but I couldn’t let it go either. I donated the money. I have also been asked to ‘prove’ I’m the creator of certain works —for which I’ll unleash the kraken. But rarely do I have to engage full combat mode; depending on their attitude and promptness of action, I usually leave it there, making sure I follow their shop first to keep an eye on any future ‘borrowings’.
Usually, people are all shades of awkward at being caught out, then apologise. I sometimes get The Bare Minimum, however:
But it was my update a bit later, following up on progress, that really got Threaders furious. People were mad about the original infringement — I get it, there are a lot of us artists on there professional and non-professional alike, and we all hate a picture thief — but this post had people roaring:
You see, aside from the puzzle that they’d used a sketchbook version of my cover which had never been made public — not beyond a lo-res jpeg in a classic old blog posted 15 years ago — my infringer had told me they’d asked the author for permission to use the artwork. And that author? Harper Lee.
Obviously, we could discuss all day why that’s funny/sad/infuriating/embarrassing for her — and some people were RAGING, and also baffled when I told them I felt a bit of sympathy for the infringer, the nuanced reasons for that proving harder to articulate than I’d imagined. And we can also unpack quickly that obviously, it’s the artist’s permission she should be asking, not the author’s, and that that artist is me. I get it.
But the huge engagement got me thinking. I created the cover for that book for Grand Central Publishing in 2009, in a quiet, nervous, ecstatic period of focussed excitement. That’s 15 years ago. The book was the 50th Anniversary mass-market edition — which is a big deal, because not only does it mean it gets gold foil on the front, it means it goes into every school, college, library, university and book shop. It couldn’t be a bigger print run.
And as such, it appeared in films, documentaries, essays, theses, dissertations, fan art, you name it. The novel itself is universally known, land loved, and part of the very texture of human culture and writing. As such, so is the artwork on the front. Although it’s mine, it stopped being ‘mine’ when the book first went out into the world, and became part of the canon of the handful of iconic covers that were created for this book in Harper’s lifetime.
So I began to seriously think for the first time that I really should let this go. I should stop wasting my precious time (feeling even more precious as I head into my 54th birthday in a few months) preventing people from using the image to generate a few quid and focussing on making new art. It makes me cross — it’s lazy and grotesquely entitled to use artwork someone else has made to make money for yourself, and there is a whole, loooooong piece I could write there — but it takes time and a certain kind type of diligent energy to hunt them down and report them; engaging with the sellers I find particuarly draining.
But as I said in my original Thread:
Best thing to do, I always think, is to keep creating — which *I* can do, whereas they can’t — because presumably, if they could, they would. Even if you can’t or won’t get the pencils out and you’re determined to open an Etsy or Redbubble shop selling stuff with pictures on you can fire up Midjourney/Stable Diff/Firefly and chuck a few words in.
For any other works that get infringed, it’s business as usual — if I spot you using my art, you better get ready because I Am Coming For You. But this one? It’s in the collective literary consciousness, and it’s inextricably and permanently connected to the book, in much the same way that people have ‘my Heathcliff’ or a favourite ‘version’ of a film or a character they love — they’re given over to the public when they’re created. most people I speak to have no notion whatsoever that this is someone’s ‘property’ — “it was just on the book/internet!”
And let’s face it, times are fucking hard. People are trying to generate extra cash wherever they can. I’m not saying life’s a sodding breeze for me either — I still have to earn money and pay bills; one life-changing cover (with a bog standard industry fee attached, I will add — this type of book project does not qualify for royalties) does not ensure financial comfort for life, despite comments I’ve received over time which suggest this is actually what some people believe.
I’d be interested in what others think. After 15 years should I retire the artillery on this one? After TKAM I went on to create several international editions, and the cover of Ms Lee’s ‘next’ novel, Go Set A Watchman. I gave talks about it, was featured in the papers and on the radio. My cover is in the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the original artwork was acquired by Harper Lee’s estate. I also have a precious hand-written note postmarked Monroeville, the content of which I shall never share publicly. And that, quite possibly, is enough.
If you love the cover image, you can for the first time acquire a signed, embossed and authenticated print of this work on 300gsm museum-quality paper, featuring artwork details never seen before.
It’s available from my Book Cover Print collection here.
