Comments on: Emily the Rip-Off

By: Sakura

Sakura — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 21:50:44 +0000

Here’s some possibility’s for you:
1. Rob Reger saw the Rosamund character, liked it, and decided to change it a little bit. But it’s not like he did that to make money or anything. He wanted to say “It’s okay to be different, and if your different embrace it”
2. Rob Reger made up the Emily the Strange character. Then he saw a picture of Rosamund and thought it was kind of ironic. Then he drew Emily just like Rosamund in that picture as kind of joke.
3. Rob Reger decided to rip off a kids book character just to make money(yea, right)
4. It’s a total coincidence(yea, right again)

Anyways, who cares? You guys are acting like Emily the Strange is a terrible influence on young people.
I myself am a 13 year old girl, and Emily the Strange helped teach me its good to be an individual. I can just be me and not some stereo-type like everyone else.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 31 May 2009 04:49:45 +0000

@ Anonymous,
“Despite this, in the end, to whatever degree, Rosamond obviously was an influence on Emily, and the original creators deserve at least a mention.”

Too late for Cosmic on that one. They claimed that they had never heard of Rosamond (or the book, “Nate the Great” that she resides in) and originally took down the Emily character because of the ‘coincidence’. Now, they’re trying to sue the very group that gave Emily her character?

They dug their own grave.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:31:07 +0000

If I may, briefly, mention my own take on this? That old bumper sticker is pretty clearly plagiarism, pure and simple — it should be recognized as such. It’s, however, a bit of a stretch to go from there to claiming the entire character has been plagiarized, given that there’s a lot more to the character than one sticker she appeared on back in 1991. Despite this, in the end, to whatever degree, Rosamond obviously was an influence on Emily, and the original creators deserve at least a mention.

By: JD

JD — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 02:42:35 +0000

“romeo and juliet was stolen from greek mythology. hamlet was stolen from the egyptian legend isis and osiris.”

Not the same thing. Romeo and Juliet do not appear in Greek mythology. Hamlet is neither Isis nor Osiris. If Shakespeare took the inspiration for his plots from those sources, that’s as may be, but the works are quite distinct.

Besides, you can take as much as you want from Greek mythology. Google “public domain” sometimes. Just don’t take anyone’s translations, word-for-word, and try to publish it as your own. *That’s* plagiarism. And copyright infringement.

Much like the original picture/caption of Emily is almost exactly the same as the page of Rosamond.

Rosamond is not ancient history, part of the culture, in the public domain. If Emily was only a strange little girl with bangs and cats, that would be fine (if a little worrisome); but the original picture/caption from which the rest are derived is a clear-cut case of copyright infringement.

By: mia

mia — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:15:49 +0000

can i just point out that shakespear and van gogh both did this whole plagiarism thing?
romeo and juliet was stolen from greek mythology. hamlet was stolen from the egyptian legend isis and osiris.
that picture of the tree with the blossoms by van gogh is almost an exact copy of a picture by hiroshige, which has also been copied by a japanese pop-artist called chiho aoshima.
plagiarism is everywhere. and i happen to like emily the strange. no one’s suing shakespear because he did a good job of stealing someone elses idea. the creators of emily the strange did too.

By: Tenchuu

Tenchuu — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:36:43 +0000

Nicole, those shirts are ALSO copyright violations, unless they’re protected by parody/satire exceptions. Copyright is violated constantly, it’s a very strict standard, and extremely hard to enforce. You have to be aware of the injury and have the resources to stop the infringement. Most artists don’t have that. That’s why there’s peeing Calvins everywhere. Do the guys making those stickers deserve that money for their original input into the character, even though the entire reason people buy them is for the recognition of said character?

As for everyone making the Family guy comparison, there are substantial differences between those two works. The judge just doesn’t say “Gee, they’re both fat and stupid, must be a violation”. How old is that character type? Shakespeare used it, at least. Courts aren’t actually full of idiots, there’s a long process to the whole thing. There are a large number of differences between those two characters. They’re drawn entirely differently, Peter wears glasses, he has brown hair, a chin cleft, he’s significantly larger than Homer, he’s not yellow and those are just visual features in an audio-visual work with drastically different humor elements. No one could reasonably look at a picture of The Simpsons and a picture of The Family Guy and say one was artistically derivative just because they’re both animated. Nobody automatically loves The Family Guy because it reminds them of The Simpsons.
This situation is very different; the initial works are extremely similar, the layout of the cats, the unique style to them, Emily’s bangs, their shoes, and the nearly identical wording in some images. That’s not derivative, that’s a copy. And when those copies are successful and as a result you carry that idea on to new areas, you’re still basing your success on the original work of someone else. I don’t feel like retyping the legal analysis I did on another blog, but do a search for the same story to find it.

By: Ybloc

Ybloc — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:57:24 +0000

What really bugs me isn’t the pictures (which are practically identical)it’s the text “Rosamond did not look hungry or sleepy, she looks like she always looks… Strange”. Emily the strange changed a few words and pasted it on. Some people here say that the one who drew her for his skateboard should be to blame but the person who conducted this ripoff is Rob Reger. How could the skateboard guy be responsible since he only drew Emily, Rob was the one who copied the text so he must of known all along about Rosamond since the text that sticker was on was one of their first merchandise.

By: Nicole.

Nicole. — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 05:13:26 +0000

how can you say that one person should be blamed for all this?
If you walk into a shopping center there are shirts that are plagiarized for example: ‘Billabong’ the brand, some people have made jumpers and such and labeled them ‘Billahong’.
even on T.V there are so many shows that copy each other. Family guy and the Simpsons, Jackass and The Dudesons, Batfink and Batman.

some only have simple simularities, But then there are some in wich have MANY.
There are no new stories to tell.
Also, they cant exactly put a trade mark on girls with black hair, dresses and cats. If they did..I’m pretty sure half of the world would be sued just for looking like that, or drawing a picture like that.

By: Corpsy

Corpsy — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 01:27:55 +0000

This is rather simple. Create a new character that resembles Emily The Strange, make a bunch of t-shirt and and watch them sue you. But since they don’t respect the source material they ripped off — than if you rip off Emily The Strange you have nothing to worry about — because they can’t sue you or they would be sued as well. LOL. So, I say put Emily The Strange on t-shirts and merchandise and sell like crazy and make a ton of money off their greed!

Here’s our tribute to Emily:
http://girlsandcorpses.com/issue9_emily.html

So, sue me.

By: suckers

suckers — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:56:23 +0000

p.s.

to mr reger….

EXPOSURE IS A BITCH……(so is karma).