Questions Raised About Logo Artist Who Was Accused Of 'Stealing' From Himself

from the look-again dept

Fri, Apr 10th 2009 1:08am — Mike Masnick

Well, well, well... a few folks have been sending in some of the investigations that have been going on concerning the logo designer, Jon Engle, who caused a big stir on a variety of sites (including ours) by claiming that he was being accused of infringing on his own logo artwork. However, as more people started investigating the matter, his story has become increasingly suspect, both with certain elements not adding up, and additional evidence suggesting that Engle himself may have, in fact, used images from others in the logos he had uploaded to sites. There are also some other claims that Engle had absolutely nothing to do with some of the logos that he said he designed. However, as the public scrutiny of Engle's story is spreading, Engle's reputation is taking a big hit -- showing how the damage done to one's own reputation by plagiarism can be punitive, even without invoking copyright law. Reputation is a scarce good... destroying it by lying and duping a bunch of folks is going to come back to bite you.

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Filed Under: accusations, copyright, jon engle, logos, reputation

21 Comments

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Ilfar, 10 Apr 2009 @ 3:45am

"...wholesale2008.com"
The fashions on that site are so last year...
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Andrew Flick, 10 Apr 2009 @ 5:21am

Good point
Good point about reputation being a scarce resource. Also interesting about this case is that Mr. Engle seems to have placed himself under more intense scrutiny by trying to rally support. Streisand effect anyone?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2009 @ 5:54am

Reputation may be a scarce good that can be destroyed but what about the previously injured parties? They see no benefit outside of satisfaction when only a reputation is ruined.

What happens if the score is so big that one wouldn't care if a future reputation is ruined? They still have their money.

Reputation is all fine and good, but isn't the be all to end all. If you could make $20 million after taxes on one big score but would ruin your reputation forever, would you do it? I think most would.
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Uday Shankar, 10 Apr 2009 @ 5:56am

Plagiarism?
I didn't know you could plagiarize images...
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2009 @ 6:19am

Re: good
true religion jeans? Cheap jordan shoes instead of jordan shoes? What's an artical??? what problem really exsit! what's an exsit!!!
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DS, 10 Apr 2009 @ 6:23am

Re: good
Lucy is a whore.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2009 @ 6:24am

Re: Re: good
Realy!
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Greg, 10 Apr 2009 @ 6:40am

Re: good
bad.. as in spelling & grammar. Wow...

If you were trying for English... fail.
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Overcast, 10 Apr 2009 @ 7:02am

And good example!

Good artical. The problem is realy exsit. reading. If you like cheap jordan shoes or you are intersting in buy jordan shoes and true religion jeans.welcome to my blog.

See - legitimate advertising can get you customers - spamming a blog will steer them very far away. I don't think I would ever trust a spammer with credit card information - heck, I barely trust half the the regular retails outlets with that info.
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Weird Harold, 10 Apr 2009 @ 7:31am

Gee, where are all the people who had the nasty comments in the previous thread? Hmmm?
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2009 @ 7:42am

Re:
Come to gloat eh?
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metropolitan, 10 Apr 2009 @ 7:59am

yes reputation is important
which is why it's sort of crappy for you to so easily make very serious implications of guilt about this guy.
by the time all this is over, all of you (engels, the stock company, blogs who think they have some sort of "scoop") are going to have your hands dirty.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2009 @ 8:13am

Re:
it figures
more blather from beneath the bridge
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DS, 10 Apr 2009 @ 8:58am

Didn't anyone else think it was suspect that the page that the logo 'artist' posted up defending himself was only available in a cashed state?
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Tgeigs, 10 Apr 2009 @ 9:07am

Re:
And here I was expecting something along the lines of, "Dear Mike, Bravo on not being afraid to post a story that refutes a previous story when it turns out you might have been wrong."

Silly me, pricks are you (I know, the play on words sucks. Community, help me out w/a better one)
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Weird Harold, 10 Apr 2009 @ 10:40am

Re: Re:
So many here were fast to try to shout down the few of us that raised questions, the few of us that could see that the story didn't smell right.

IMHO, I expect someone who is a "guru" and guiding light in the battle against copyright and all those things to have a better nose for it than me. Mike doesn't deserve a pat on the back for the original story or the retraction, at least not until he writes an agressive, venomous post about how people like Engle are trying to hide and rip other people off.

Until then, the atta-boys aren't forthcoming.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2009 @ 11:17am

Re: Re: Re:
The issue is not that discrepancies are coming to the fore, but that the blogging community jumped into the fray vilifing the "big guys" simply because initial blogs were posted placing blame on the "big guys".

I note the identical propensity in virtually all matters involving groups such as the RIAA, the MPAA, and the BSA.

How easy it is to express opinions proclaiming righteous indignation without any predicate facts. I guess independent thought and investigation have become passe.
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Anonymous Coward, 10 Apr 2009 @ 5:22pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
How easy it is to express opinions proclaiming righteous indignation without any predicate facts. I guess independent thought and investigation have become passe.

Uh. Someone apparently isn't paying attention. It was independent thought and investigation that EXPOSED this as being a fraud. And now the blogs that posted it in the first place are the first to expose the fraud as well.

So what are you complaining about now?
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Weird Harold, 10 Apr 2009 @ 11:14pm

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
The problem is that the fraud isn't exposed with the same vigor and nasty tone that the original issue was brought up:

"Questions Raised About Logo Artist Who Was Accused Of 'Stealing' From Himself"

Versus:

"Designer Threatened With Copyright Infringement Claims... On His Own Work"

The original post is full of righteous indignation, the follow up is filled with carefully couched phrases like "certain elements not adding up"

The original? "They started going after all of Engle's clients," concluding with a surly "Nice to see copyright law "protecting" the artist again. "

The rush to judgement, the wild desire to see copyright somehow abused is so great that there is no waiting for fact, the mere whiff of a story is enough to run the propaganda machines up to full speed. The proof is in some of the comments in the original thread, that were downright insulting to those of us who could already see that the story was full of holes.

Those people are very, very quiet now.
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nasch, 11 Apr 2009 @ 11:30am

Re: Re: Re:
If you had said "this story doesn't smell right" that would be one thing. What bothered me about your statements is that you basically said (I just went back and looked at it) "This guy appears to be in the right, but it's appropriate that he's getting sued because he can't prove he's innocent."

Mike doesn't deserve a pat on the back for the original story or the retraction, at least not until he writes an agressive, venomous post about how people like Engle are trying to hide and rip other people off.

Until then, the atta-boys aren't forthcoming.

You really think the original post was "venomous"?
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Apr 2009 @ 12:48pm

Re:
"Didn't anyone else think it was suspect that the page that the logo 'artist' posted up defending himself was only available in a cashed state?"

Are you saying that he paid for the page? How much I wonder.
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