Advertisers have stolen my zine!!!!

[Sticky Institute]

Hello zine people,

Luke from the zine YOU here. YOU is a free weekly paper zine that has appeared every week since November 2001. The zine is distributed in Australia by Sticky, Bird In The Hand Zine Distro and the Format Zine Shop, in the US by Microcosm Publishing and in the UK by Corn Dog Zine Distro (as well as many other friendly people across the zine world).

There is a glossy fashion magazine published in Melbourne called 'Fashion Journal'. In issue number 93 on page 52 an Australian fashion label called 'Nana Judy' has used images from my zine in a glossy full page advertisement for their label. They did not ask my permission to use the work and did not ask or get any consent to use the work. If they had asked me to use the work I would have said no. So my question to you is what should I do about this?

Thanks,

Luke You.

[Sticky Institute]

The pages were ripped from an anthology of the first five years of the zine, ripped as in physically torn from the book. The hip dude in the photo is sitting on the book that the pages have been ripped from. Luke.

NicoleIntrovert said:

Just to be fair... YOU isn't a basic formatted zine. I have seen it come in many random forms, including with a envelope and a piece of broken record. I'd be pretty sure the zine wasn't ripped for the shoot. But Luke could correct that if i am wrong.

Chantel G. said:

I just looked at Fashion Journal #93 on line. I think the whole magazine is ridiculous! If it weren't supposed to be serious, I would find it hilarious. There is much to find offensive there.

And in the ad Luke's zine was all ripped up! That part is sad too! Who rips up their zines and scatters the pages in a hallway? Weird!

I'm sorry you are having to deal with this, Luke. The company should have gotten your permission.

[Sticky Institute]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for all of your thoughts on what to do about this advertisement situation. I think everything is sorted out now and I just wanted to let you know what happened so if this happens to any of our zines in the future we have a reference point of how you might want/want not to proceed.

So after seeing the advertisement in the magazine I talked to as many people as I could to try and figure out what I wanted to do about it. As you can imagine the responses were hugely varied from advising me to "go after the corporate scum" to just "wearing it". Before I spoke to the company involved I decided to talk to a lawyer first, mainly because I was worried that the company would just laugh in my face if I called them up and I felt really powerless in the situation. I was lucky in that Sticky has a lawyer who does all their legal work for them for free (because Sticky is a not for profit project). This lawyer is familiar with zines and it was right in her area. Because she works for Sticky she was nice enough to do it for free too.

The lawyer's advice was that in creating the advertisement and using my work Nana Judy (the fashion label)had created an "implied endorsement" which constituted a "breach of the Trade Practise Act" here in Australia. The lawyers advice was to email the company and let them know how I felt and request that the campaign be brought down immediately. If the company did not respond as I hoped to my email the lawyer then advised that she would write a strong legal letter outlining what the company had done and what we wanted to see happen. She was confident that the initial email would be enough.

So I sent off the email and got a response from the company. They apologised for using my work, admitted they were in the wrong and promised to end the campaign straight away. The advertisement had already appeared in Fashion Journal and they had put it in one other Melbourne fashion magazine, Lure, of which the deadlind had passed to withdraw the ad.

So the outcome is that they promised to cease the campaign straight away, which was what I was looking for. It felt pretty un-DIY and non-punk rock to go to the lawyers but I felt in a much stronger position being able to name drop my lawyer in the initial contact with the company.

Luke You.

[Serah-Marie]

I know this totally isn't the point of this thread, but I just wanted to disagree with a point made here, that there is something wrong with a publication whose goal is "catering to people who think clothes play an important role in life."

Now, I know more than anyone that there are some pretty insipid fashion publications out there, but don't you think that this statement this is maybe throwing the baby out wit the bath water? I'm not defending Fashion Journal in particular, but I'd have to say clothes DO play an important role in life. Last time I checked the overwhelming majority of people put them on everyday, and make delibrate choices about how they do that. I think dismissing ALL clothing-centric publications is a bit short sighted.



Samantha Manchester said:

Dan,

No, I don't think it's OK for people to steal others' work, period--whether you're distributing just to your friends or to publishing houses worldwide. Point is, Nana Judy is trying to say a certain type of guy wears Nana Judy clohes, and they're bringing YOU into that message without consultation with the author. I mean, under Nana Judy's "About Us" they say they make clothes for "guys who want to look the part" -- bleh. It's just grating. And I guess even if I weren't to blame the magazine, I would definitely blame the ad. And I can't say, after looking at the magazine, that I'd want much to do with what they have to offer, either, as it's devoted to catering to people who think clothes play an important role in life.