Due to Copyright Claim by Simply Rins

I was supposed to keep mum about another copyright claim after it has been resolved. But after a week of receiving inquiries and reading bad comments on my social media channels, I felt it is my responsibility to tell all of you the real story.

The Gist
A certain nail artist, who regularly posts nail art video tutorials on YouTube have repeatedly used my nail art designs. She never asked for my permission nor gave credit. I reported one of the videos wherein she recreated one of my nail designs to YouTube and it has been made unavailable a few days after. Her followers have been leaving comments on my channels ever since. These messages have encouraged me to write this article.

Copyright Claim
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcCRXZK6qIU

The Story
Let me start by saying that I was one of her followers when I started blogging about nail art. She uses only nail polishes on all her nail art tutorials and I admire her for that. I use acrylic paints because basically, they are more forgiving. I also appreciate the time and effort she puts into her videos because we all know that they are more helpful compared to just looking at pictures.

But as I got to know more nail/art bloggers, I started to notice that most of what she recreates on her YouTube channel is not really hers. And the sad thing is, I never saw her give credit nor mention where she got her inspiration from.

I did a video nail art tutorial last December 2011 that I titled, "Christmas Tree ala Polka Dots" and this is one of the photos of this nail art that I published on my blog:

Christmas Tree ala Polka Dots

I also made a video tutorial that I uploaded on my YouTube channel on December 05, 2011:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4c4k1uG5e4

The photos and the video went live here on my blog last December 06, 2011. You can read the full post here.

On November 2013, this certain YouTuber/nail artist posted a Christmas video nail art tutorial and she included my "Christmas Tree ala Polka Dots" without credit. I didn't report this then because I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt that perhaps we coincidentally had the same idea! Besides, it was Christmas.

Below is a screenshot I took of her video, showing that she used my nail design:

Copyright Claim

Let's go back to February 2013. I posted a Valentine's inspired nail art that I named, "Planted Hearts" and this is how it looked:

Planted Hearts Nail Art Design
Planted Hearts Nail Art

Thanks to a follower who alerted me, the same YouTuber/nail artist posted a Valentine's video nail art tutorial on January 2014 and again used one of my designs.

Here is a screen capture of that video she made, showing that she copied my nail art:

Copyright Claim

I thought twice before reporting the video to YouTube. But I have been experiencing having my designs or photos stolen that it has become difficult to ignore. Stealing is wrong. We (nail art bloggers) all belong to the nail/art community and the least we can give to one another is respect. Let us give credit to where credit is due. We owe it to our followers/readers to be responsible and honest.

A few hours after YouTube made the video unavailable, I received an email from the one managing her YouTube channel. He said:
" As far as your "Planted Heart" nail art design, you own the rights to any images and video your produce of your design, but the not design itself. [She] did not use any of your images in her video and therefore this claim is unwarranted.

Copyright is NOT limited to just images or videos. The design itself is protected by copyright law. Even though she didn't use any of my photos on her video, she still used my nail designs. That is copyright infringement.

I hope that this article will shed light to why her video went down. I simply had to do what was right.

-----
UPDATE (inserted on January 29, 2014)

I decided to upload a short video on my YouTube channel as an answer to people who have been leaving comments there. Hopefully, I can direct them to this post so that they could read in detail about the issue at hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6UbFQQ45Xw







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108 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear you are going through this Rins - I give you credit for standing up to her and protecting your creative property. All she needs to do is give credit where due.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Freshie!

      I know I made a lot of her followers quite mad. It was a hard decision. But in the end, I decided that I needed to do it. I hope this issue will not be blown out of proportion.

      Delete
  2. Glad you're standing up for yourself. I don't know why some youtubers find giving credit so difficult to do. There is nothing wrong with being inspired by a design, or recreating it, but credit should be given to the original artist.

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    Replies
    1. The problem is, some people easily judge and can say the meanest things without really knowing the entire story. I knew she has a huge following and I would probably hear a lot of bad comments. But in the end, wrong is wrong.

      Thank you very much for the support.

      Delete
  3. So disappointing that there's so much stealing within the nail art community nowadays but I'm glad you're standing up for yourself.

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  4. ms. simply rins, i agree sa person na nag send sa iyo ng message na " As far as your "Planted Heart" nail art design, you own the rights to any images and video your produce of your design, but the not design itself. [She] did not use any of your images in her video and therefore this claim is unwarranted.

    hindi ko sinasabi na mali ka. pero like me na videographer and i have a lot of friends na photographer. and i also work for mr jaime zobel de ayala. ako ang dating gumagawa ng kayang photography portfolio. never silang nag post ng kailang photos sa web. nag gagawa sila ng exhibit for their arts and photos. if i were you stop posting youre video of nail art. kasi everything na ipost mo sa web eh hindi kana ang may ari. mga painting nga ng mga masters nagagaya ng mga ibang artist at naibebenta pa nila ang mga ginaya nilang painting. isa lang ang masasabi ko, save your video and photos ng nail art mo at mag exhibit ka at the same time kikita ka pa.

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  5. OMG! I didn't know that she was that cheeky! I never followed her but I "know" her (her youtube channel) of course.

    I recreated two of your nail art ideas for my blog as well... but both times I gave you credits and linked to your blog!

    Halloween spiders:
    http://lackaffen.blogspot.de/2013/10/halloween-2013.html

    winter design:
    http://lackaffen.blogspot.de/2012/12/winter-wonderland.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. I follow the you tube channel in question and I'm shocked! I had no idea she was copying without credit. I'm so sorry you have to go through this! You are amazingly creative and I love your blog. Thanks for posting.

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  7. I simply could not understand why people refuse to give credit. Is it really so hard to mention where you got the idea? Kudos to you Rina for standing up for your rights, and thanks for sharing this story. Don't give up!

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  8. I can't believe you tubes comment. Crazy. I'm so excited that you're standing up for yourself. Most of the people these girls steal from don't have the resources to go after them. Good for you!!

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  9. omg im actually a subby of cutepolish. now that im aware that she has no originality, i will definitely unsubscribe to her channel.

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  10. Too much of this has been happening lately, it is a shame. Simply asking permission or giving credit to the original creator is all that is needed to avoid these types of issues, yet some people still try to get away with it.

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  11. It's absolutely appalling... Kudos to you for being a smart stewart over your creative images.

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  12. Ive noticed this before on her videos and its quite aggravating to say the least. She has so many followers bur her ideas are not her own. I can understand wanting to recreate a design so your followers can see especially if u have a lot but yes ure supposed to give credit so the original artist gets the attention they deserve..

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have seen a lot of other people do dotted tree nail art. I have seen videos and blog posts. Some people have given you credit and some have not. Are you going to going to go after all of the other people that have done that design or just cutepolish?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Danielle.

      Let me point out first that what I did is not a personal attack on cutepolish. Like I said earlier in this article, I think her video tutorials are very helpful and I admire her for that. But she has to be responsible to acknowledge where she got inspiration for some of her designs.

      I am not singling out anyone. I try to protect my work as much as I can and I always try my best to deal with this issue whenever I am made aware of a violation. This is why I appreciate followers/friends who send me a heads up if they find one of my designs being used inappropriately.

      Delete
    2. I don't think that it was a personal attack. I understand why you did it. I think it is extremely important to give credit if the design was not yours. All I was trying to say was, if you are going to file a copyright claim against one person that has done your design in a video without credit, then you should be doing the same with everyone that has done a video of your design without giving credit. If you don't then you are singling out one person.

      Delete
    3. Like I said, as long as I am made aware of a violation, I report it.

      Delete
    4. Like I said, I understand why you did it. But did you ever send her a message asking to give you credit or did you just automatically report it? If you did try to message her, you did not mention it in your post.

      Delete
    5. Yes, I made efforts to contact her when she uploaded the Christmas video tutorial. I never got a reply. The only time someone contacted me was when I reported the Valentine's video. And it's not even her that emailed me.

      Delete
  14. What a shame! It is so easy to give credit, so everybody should do it! The designs she did was almost identical to yours, down to the colors and placement of the art, so it was obviously not just a coincidence of two people thinking alike!

    I hope everything works out!

    ReplyDelete
  15. I've actually found another one, not a huge surprise I guess, by MissJenFabulous : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzzHM7kwCqU The design is shown at 59 seconds.This was published December 12th, 2012.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I also found an old blog post of mine where I recreated your design and totally credited you : http://polishobsessed.blogspot.ca/2011/12/dotty-trees.html

      How hard is it to give someone the credit they deserve?

      Delete
    2. Thanks so much for this, Danielle! I will definitely review this and see if I can report it too. And thank you for mentioning me on your recreation. I highly appreciate it.

      Delete
  16. I completely support you! I actually left a comment on one of her videos saying that she should be giving credit where it was due over a month ago. However, the comment was deleted, and I was blocked. Shameful what she is doing. Especially since she is making money from recreating other nail artists designs. I wonder how her sponsors feel about it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you. I also tried to get her attention, but I didn't receive any reply.

      Delete
  17. too bad, it doesn't cost nothing to say i was inspired by...

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  18. I know I don't understand why people can't just say this is my spin on something so and so did. You can still rock your own spin on it, maybe even do it better than the original, but to not give credit is wrong and I'm glad you stood up for yourself.

    ReplyDelete
  19. That was her ultimate guide she's not that old and it's a nail design ever heard of coincidence and maybe she was just looking at valentine nails on Google or google images saw ur post and decided to teach her followers how to do the design and u should b honored that u used ur designs and u just ruined my valentines day and many dithers bc U deleted it so thnx to u u ruined hundreds thousands millions of lives for valentines day I hope ur happy

    ReplyDelete
  20. That was her ultimate guide she's not that old and it's a nail design ever heard of coincidence and maybe she was just looking at valentine nails on Google or google images saw ur post and decided to teach her followers how to do the design and u should b honored that u used ur designs and u just ruined my valentines day and many dithers bc U deleted it so thnx to u u ruined hundreds thousands millions of lives for valentines day I hope ur happy

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'thnx to u u ruined hundreds thousands millions of lives for valentines' lol you're hilarious!

      Delete
  21. Looks like her video is back up...

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  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  23. Yes , her deleted video is up back, not fair to you Rina..

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  24. I am totally shocked! When I saw this post in my RSS feeder, I assumed it was going to be about MissJenFabulous. I had NO idea cutepolish had stolen any designs... I follow a lot of bloggers and I could swear pretty much everything she posted was at least marginally original (or was such a generic, simple design that no one could really claim it), plus she has a history of being pretty innovative (like how she created the spotted water technique). I am incredibly disappointed in her, and I'm sorry she stole from you (and anyone else she stole from, of course).

    ReplyDelete
  25. I like the acrylic paint you use to paint your designs!!! no love it!!! when the others use polish it looks blobbed on like a 5 year old drew a picture!!! yours looks so smooth and crisp and so neat!!! love all your art!!!! and what you name your art!!! perfectly fits it!!!! I just subscribed!!!

    ReplyDelete
  26. Whats wrong is wrong.. way to go Rins!

    ReplyDelete
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    ReplyDelete
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