These photos come from IAM: Rainbow Gyrl. She’s teaching ESL in Korea and happened to come across this shop in Gwangju. Not only are they using Scott Fox’s Original BME logo, they’ve also taken Bill Baker’s “Tattooing for Satan” logo as well! This is definitely NOT an authorized BME tattoo studio!
BME/News and Modblog highlight only a small fraction of what
do they have permission?
mmmhm, prob a terribad shop.
I would take legal action.
well its in the part of the world where they copy everything, was waiting for something like this the happen.
and about legal action i don think it will have much sucses and for now you can just be happy that they dont use the name BME or any of the other names.
I get a kick out of this. How does one figure that stealing a picture of someone else’s work and than posting it online won’t get back to the original artist or owner? It never fails to make me laugh.
But THIS! Let’s just go ahead and start branding our company with another company’s logo! Hahaha!
Not knowing the language, that is way misleading.
I’d assume its a decent shop. I’ve been here in South Korea for about 5 months now, and I’ve seen some really amazing freehand work come out of some of these shops.
RE: Ralex’s post (#3)
What the hell do you know about Korea? Don’t insult other cultures naively. Wherever you’re from, and I know where I’m from, copying still goes on! It’s not about belonging to one “part of the world” or another. The people who chose to copy BME’s image chose to on their on accord, just as any American, German, Swiss, Indian, Greek, or whatever person might. For example, the college I went to had (as most colleges do), a specific logo with their initials, and while walking through a classy part of town (SoHo, NYC) I saw that logo being used for a hair salon! It’s not cultural, it’s personal, and I would think as a contributor to these modblog post responses, you would have enough sense to see that.
Rainbow Gyrl was walking by the shop and took the photos. Chrome (the shop) has some other photos on their website but due to the language barrier, I can’t figure out how to log in to their site.
Faeven: Copyright infringement is pretty rampant all over the world, you’re right. Where in NYC did you see the logo for the salon?
As far as legal options, there is really nothing that I could do about it.
…it’s not like anyone knows about BME or anything, I’m surprised they got caught.
…..yeah…
The salon is in SoHo. It uses the Vassar College VC logo. I really ought to have taken a picture with that and the real logo I have on my wallet…
No Rachel, I know you couldn’t do anything, but the folks here at BME who produced those logos could have something done. Couldn’t they? I don’t have very much knowledge of the legal system cross country, but I would think you could atleast have them remove the logo(s).
oh..how i laughed about it xD…oh well, bme could see this as a compliment to the great enzine they are ^^
Oh, yeah, the folks who run BME… I should get a hold of them.. 🙂
It’s hard enough to get someone locally (ie Canada or USA) to remove a logo, let alone someone in another country. Infringement laws are pretty wacky. I’ve been dealing with this for years with BME and sometimes it’s just nice to see the logo up. The sign is done pretty well!
I wonder if they even know where they took it from or if the sign maker just googled tattoo/piercing and made the sign.
Honestly, yeah they used your logo, so what?!? It’s not like the usage of the logo is cutting into BME profits or anything like that. Like Valy said, take it as a compliment and move on.
permission… lol,
The author should be proud that such kind of tattoo industrie elements takes his art, and it looks really good.
Gotu: I wouldn’t go that far. It’s one thing if they use it on shirts or aftercare but to actually use it as their shop logo, it’s frustrating because people will think that this shop is related to BME.
lol Sam..I think the main problem isn’t about money, but more along the lines of what if this shop isn’t a sterile professional shop? If people see the sign and associate it with BME, they’ll be more inclined to trust it and there are all kinds of issues that could arise from being tattooed or pierced by someone who shouldn’t tattoo or pierce someone. Since it is not a BME authorized shop as stated above on the actual entry, the fact that they’re using BME’s logo is pretty problematic.
Not that anything can really be done about, other than posting this entry to let potential clients know that it’s just any old shop that should be super researched before they trust it.
(and before I get flak for saying you shouldn’t just trust a shop because they are famous or well known or associated with someone who is famous or well known and you should always do research anyway blah blah, some people do anyway and those are the type of people that would be fooled by that sign)
Lame. If they’re giving people tattoos they should be able do come up with something to represent their work on a shop sign. The BME designs are pretty rad though.
SUE THEIR ASSES!!
Yeah, I’d surely freak out if I walked into some place that I thought was related to something familiar when in fact it isn’t!!
(Is what I just said confusing?)
make a bomb and blow that fucking shop to fucking hell
Can you say… Karma? What goes around, comes around. It’s interesting what happens when people steal from others.
they took more than one logo, thats pretty sad.
i think the guy who draw these logos should sue.
on the other hand, if he decides to sue, it could take years due to lack of lang and location.
we shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this is a shop of disrepute, the fact that their signs look so nice probably suggests otherwise, ripped off artwork aside. and not to disrespect BME in any way, but when I got the majority of my tattoos and piercings, I had never heard of this site. Actually until this year I wouldn’t have associated those logos with BME, I would have just thought they were really cool logos. which is probably why this shop ripped them, NOT because they think everyone in the world interested in tattooing and piercing actually knows what BME is and they are trying to ride off the site’s reputation. I would actually think the opposite – that they think nobody will notice so they get away with some cool artwork for free!!
I’m sorry for the artist though, it is painful to see your work stolen and they should consider at least writing and asking for it to be removed. don’t like the chances though :/
Sadly the artist is no longer with us..Scott drowned several years ago with his twin brother
I agree with the whole bombing them to hell thing. Fuck them, cross ‘em out.
19.
That’s a great idea. At the same time we could sleep with our sisters and play our banjoes on the porch whilst sipping on some moonshine…
Fucking redneck.
#24-
Ha.
The sign says Tattoo, Piercing, Henna, Rainbow (whatever that implies…?), and I believe, Brush Tattoo, or Blush Tattoo. They’re all just English syllables written out in Korean. As for the site, you have to sign up to look at everything.
Dude, it’s Korea. Deal with it. Knock-off’s are a fact of life in this part of the world, ain’t nothing you can do about it.
It’d be awfully hard for the original artist to do something about it:
Scott Fox (1972–1999) was the designer of the original BME logo, which most subsequent BME logos (and t-shirts) are based on. He was a brilliant artist and musician, and a good friend, who never got to see just how many people his artwork touched. Scott died along with his twin brother, Todd, while swimming in Lake Ontario. He is deeply missed.
(from the BME Wiki)
There’s next to no copyright in Korea- I lived there for a year before you jump down my throat. Rachel, if you need help with translation let me (or Marie) know… but from what I know, copyright battles in court are long and extremely expensive. I’m certain that next to no Koreans would have knowledge of IAM/BME, so the chances of anyone noticing the sign and thinking ‘Ooh, BME affiliated!’ are very slim.
For what it’s worth the Tattooing for Satan image is by Bill Baker, who is still quite alive these days. The best part of the sign is how they took out the word SATAN, and just left it reading “tattooing for.”
I have ZERO interest in pursuing this legally. If you’ll note, my post wasn’t even complaining about it because having dealt with trademark and copyright issues for years. I know what the laws are like in other countries.
I thought it was neat to see and decided to share it here. The signs are well done and it’s a lot better than the knock offs I’ve seen in the USA.
darylect: Good eyes!! I didn’t even notice they removed the “Satan” part! Bill Baker is definitely alive and well!
Legally, whatever. Moraly, kinda lame. But eh, what can ya do? What’s funny to me is that they stole not only ONE but TWO logos from the site. Making sure there is NO mistake at all in showing people that know better… where in fact they got them.
Like with people that copy tattoos ie; the Amina Munster chest tattoo fiasco, all you can do is exploit them for their stupidity.
I rofl’d. Art thievery is rampant, if you produce anything decent and have it available on the internet, people will take it.
I don’t know why but it seems really stupid to have a bme logo up as your own shop logo. If bme was really affiliated with them, wouldn’t said affiliation be mentioned somewhere on the bme website? I don’t think they did it to mislead people into thinking that bme is affiliated with them, and I hope that people aren’t dumb enough to assume that the two are affiliated.
Aren’t there issues regarding losing the right to enforce copyright laws by not taking action? or is that for something else. Can’t blame them though, they’re great logo’s.
i like the first sign more than the second sign the Tattooing for Satan one just looks like they desperately wanted filler for the sign and picked it.
It’d be rather interesting if someone contacted them to ask them if they knew that the images they used, were belonging to BME,etc.
I bet they just did a search and found the pics and went “cool image!’ and downloaded them cuz they thought it’d look nice
yeah, it is waste of time and money to purse legal action.
I think copyright and patents laws are sad. I think the patents and copyright laws should be gone.
the big companies and corps are taking advantage of the patent and copyright laws.
some small companies getting sued by big companies because they made a product that is almost copy their patents. it is not fair to small companies and consumers who use products.
i know one company had to stop produce this nice wireless controller because of the other company already patented wireless part of the controller.
link of relevance to the conversation
http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/
I’m frog Korea Seoul
i supose imitation is the highest form of flattery… i seriously hope this parlor is churning out material of a high enough standard to match that logo.
26. – That’s the answer to everything, eh? Blow ‘em away if you don’t like ‘em?
You’re from the South, aren’t you? 😉
i think i saw one very similar here in mexico city, in the south zone near a place called ” pericoapa”, and the name of the shop is kaustika
I teach here in Korea and let me say that logo stealing is very common here. It’s not even considered very bad. Everywhere you go, you will see Puma, the Simpsons, Alien, Batman, NIN, ect, ect, being used illegally. Most Koreans don’t know or care what they see or wear; it’s just for decoration. For example, kids wear Yankee and Red Sox hats, but don’t even know its for a baseball team. Noraebangs (Karaoke rooms) are particularly prone to stealing an image. So Koreans don’t think its stealing; they’re just using a cool image. That being said, I think that if your business is making artwork, it looks bad to be using a stolen image.