Inktober's drama (artists read)

nostalgicroxas 2020-01-01 10:17:23 UTC #1

Story cut short: if you promote or sell art that has the word / logo / hashtag of "inktober" on it, remove the word / blur it out immediately.

The word has been Trademarked and take down notices are going out to artists.

Official post from the creator of Inktober can be read here: https://www.mrjakeparker.com/blog/2019/12/20/inktober

faeriesandents 2020-01-01 10:20:50 UTC #2

...Please go to his website and read the official statement about this:

It's not entirely that bad, someone entirely misunderstood. Just make sure your inktober project is named something else besides inktober and/or show you're not affiliated with the official logo.

nostalgicroxas 2020-01-01 10:24:13 UTC #3

I hope it's not that bad. From reading twitter, some people who have sold stuff on amazon have gotten copyright claim notices and their stuff's been put into limbo until it's sorted.

faeriesandents 2020-01-01 10:27:11 UTC #4

And all they require to do is adjust the name for their product to not be focused on Inktober anymore, that is literally all.

The OP of this tweet is approached by JP a little further down her rant, and explains to her that this was not the intention nor supposed to happen. He is making an official Inktober book, and thus needs to license the Inktober name FOR THAT BOOK. To keep people from buying the wrong thing, all you have to do is change the title of your project from "2019 Inktober challenge!" to simply "2019 Month of inks!" or whatever, and you're done.

faeriesandents 2020-01-01 10:29:58 UTC #5

May I PLEASE ask you put the link in the OP too before the fearmongering starts even more?

nostalgicroxas 2020-01-01 10:30:01 UTC #6

Yeah I read his statement before posting. It sounds like he'll be making a blank prompt book along the lines of the 500 Prompts SketchBook.

faeriesandents 2020-01-01 10:31:08 UTC #7

Nonetheless that requires him to have a copyright and trademark over it, can't help it but it's really not that big an issue.

EDIT: and thanks for updating the OP ^^ That's all that needs to be said really.

nostalgicroxas 2020-01-01 10:32:22 UTC #8

Hopefully ruffled feathers are calmed. I've never really had time to participate in the event itself, so I'm not one of those directly impacted past a few tags on instagram from this year. But from what it says, tags are fine I assume.

nostalgicroxas 2020-01-01 10:33:21 UTC #9

Indeed. And really, it's not like the guy really thought it'd get so big. Lots of people make prompt lists and stuff that have gone nowhere.

faeriesandents 2020-01-01 10:34:43 UTC #10

Tags, hashtags, and links are just fine, even using the prompt list is fine to copy. Just gotta show it's your own stuff and not his

Yeah his prompt got HUUUGE, but then again he's turned into a very respectable person in the indie community.

Pandastrophic 2020-01-01 11:44:23 UTC #11

The reason this issue became huge was because an artist DID get their stuff taken down.
A lot of people including myself don't mind the trademark, the main issue is something that (to my knowledge) hasn't been addressed in JP's official statement, he didn't say why he didn't give anyone a warning about this earlier, especially as the trademark was there for a really long time but decided to take down stuff without warning. Even if he didn't intent to take down an indie artists works... it was still taken down without prior warning.

Inktober passed only a few months ago and there are probably lots of already printed artists books with the official inktober logo on the cover or with "Inktober 2019" as the title (not subtitle) so it doesn't meet the criteria set for the trademark. If artists had known that before hand then they would have been able to adjust their inktober books to match the criteria but they didn't because JP didn't tell anyone about the trademark for some reason.

I mostly feel bad for these artists right now, like those who already printed 200 copies of their artbooks that don't meet a trademark criteria they didn't know was there, I just hope JP handles their situation well moving forward.

DualDragons 2020-01-01 12:00:24 UTC #12

Damn, that's rough.
I did do Inktober according to the official prompt list on Instagram ( i didn't sell anything though )

Should i alter some things to avoid being taken down there? I showed the official prompt list l, mentioned Inktober and used hashtags.

Pandastrophic 2020-01-01 12:11:59 UTC #13

That's totally fine!
The trademark is for merch and artbooks being sold and even if you do have an inktober artbook with the official prompt list then it's fine as long as you meet the criteria they set.