Hey there and welcome to the Planner Pals Podcast, a podcast
hosted by two true Planner pals. My name is Mark or mark your
pages. And I'm Jess or Jessie Curran.
And in today's episode, we're going to be talking about art
theft in the planner community in particular, thinking about
our experiences with it, kind of what is it, what counts as art
theft, And then also how we can try and stay safe from this in
the future. It's a really important topic.
We're excited to talk about this today.
First just got to give a shout out to everyone who made great
comments and also a suggestion on our last episode.
It was the longest podcast episode we have recorded to
date. So anyone who made it to the
end, we are forever grateful. And Jess, thank you for editing
that one. I'm sorry to throw that over to
you the longest one possible, but you did amazing.
Thank you so much. I did.
Mostly amazing. I really appreciated you saying
like, Oh yeah, I'm not going to watch it back.
I trust you. And then of course we got a
comment saying, hey, what's with the weird audio glitch at 27?
I'm like, no, I've ruined it. But always check your work
before hitting publish, even if it's an hour and 50 minutes.
I was going to say when it's almost a 2 hour episode, you
know you make those things happen also, just wanted to
shout out everyone who gave great ideas on ways that we
could have future planner con meetups and these great ideas.
I think overwhelmingly we saw a lot of people that said hey, I
would love to do like a plan and learn this idea of being able to
listen to someone talk but also learning skills as you do it,
which, you know, we did a little bit of echo wild, but I
definitely missed a lot of that, you know, kind of happening.
But maybe it's too big to do something like that but loved
the ideas about these like smaller get togethers and things
like that. I think some people thought that
we were like planning something. We're like no, no, no, we're
really just asking a question. We're not.
We're not trying to take on a whole lot just yet.
One day maybe. I mean, it gave us a lot of
ideas for what could happen in the future, but there is
absolutely 0 promises very much. That's a future US problem, but
I think it would be a lot of fun if we could get around doing
something like that at some. Point Yeah, when this podcast
gets sponsored by Amazon or some big huge company, Spotify, you
know, when we're exclusive, you know, maybe we'll think about
doing that. But for right now we're just
trying to get by doing this and our full time jobs and content
creation and all the other things.
So let's go ahead and kick it to today's topic, which is about
art theft in the community. This is definitely something
that I know I've seen, especially in the planner
community. I'm sure it happens and others
as well, especially with like graphic design and things like
that, but just you wanna go ahead and kick off the
conversation and get this party started.
So I went and had a little hunt online.
Of course, like the first hit that comes up is Wikipedia.
So Wikipedia decided to say that art theft is very much about the
idea of like physically taking art.
So like getting your bandit gear on, sneaking up into the museum,
stealing pictures off the wall for resale somewhere else.
We're not so much thinking about that unless, like somebody's
literally coming into your house at night and stealing your
planner. Which I certainly hope isn't the
case. Can you imagine?
I know, right? I mean, of all of the things to
take. But I guess I did spend a pretty
penny on these notebooks. I think they'd probably steal
the ones that are blank more than the ones I've scribbled in.
But. Never know.
It's one possible version of art theft, but we're also thinking
about digital art theft, right? So this could be something like
the redistribution of media online that has, you know, your
artwork in it. Or it could be something like a
recreation without giving credit or without getting permission
before you do that. Yeah, I think that in the
graphic design space, I see that a lot.
I know a lot of people that do that and then post that online.
I've seen a number of people that are like hey, Target stole
my design or Pacific Sunwear was another one.
I saw recent from someone that I follow that does really great
work. I mean it's almost the exact
work. It blows my mind that that
happens and I feel like in our space and specifically in the
planner space, it looks a little bit different, probably a little
bit more that redistribution, but a little bit more about
people re sharing online. Yeah.
I mean, if you're thinking about it in terms of stealing
somebody's design, in terms of a product, you could think about
this in terms of like the sticker space in particular or
like washy tape designs and stuff like that.
When you were talking about yours.
I'm like Sheen Sheehan, whatever they're called.
And like all of the people who have come out saying like, yeah,
they stole my bathing through design, they stole my artwork
and stuff. And I think that the biggest
thing around that was they weren't just taking the designs,
they were also taking the marketing strategies that people
were using and like doing recreations of the photography
that they used for, like their products and stuff.
So it's crazy out there, but hopefully you guys haven't
experienced it to that level with your stuff.
But in particular, we're really going to be focusing on that
idea of like redistribution of maybe pictures you've posted on
Instagram or Pinterest or anything like that, or the
recreation of designs in your layout in your notebook,
whatnot. That has been done without
giving credit or without getting permission first.
And this is such an interesting conversation too, because when
we had originally talked about this idea, it gave me this like
look back feeling that when I first started in bullet
journaling there was some really big repost accounts that you
wanted to get noticed by. When we were talking a few
episodes back about like tagging all of the different people to
try to get people to look at your stuff, there was several
that I had written down in a collection that were like tag
these people because hopefully they'll see mine and then
they'll reshare it. Now the good thing about them, I
think for the most part, I don't think anyone was shady about it.
They always gave credit, right? The whole point of their account
was to get other things out there.
But at the same time they are using your artwork, they're
using other people's artwork and they're gaining a following
because of that. So I feel like it can get a
little bit dicey. Yeah, there is certainly a grey
area in that because obviously you as the creator or original
creator get exposure from that. We're not even going to talk
about the idea of paid in exposure because off, but that's
one you know, benefit there is to you.
You get to have more eyeballs on your artwork, but then they're
also benefiting from that because they're gaining some
kind of a following around that, because they're sharing more
pieces, because they don't have to go to the effort to create
them, photograph them, maybe like edit the pictures so they
look Instagram worthy, and then all of that kind of stuff.
So it's kind of like they're taking a shortcut by using your
artwork and then being able to like, share more because of it,
which it's it's a hard space, right?
Because obviously there are benefits for both parties, but
it's when that becomes kind of unbalanced, I suppose, where
people get taken advantage of and that kind of thing.
I think I see that a lot more when you're working with
different brands than you are necessarily some of the repo
sites and our small community of planners, I know there's been a
number of times and we see a lot of people be very vocal about it
when a brand takes a photo. And and I think this kind of
will go into the conversation that we're going to get into
today, is that idea that when you are posting something by a
brand or you used a specific brand, a pen or a notebook or
whatever, you're doing that as a way, at least for me and I'm,
I'm pretty sure this is kind of the general way of doing this.
You're doing this because you're letting people know this brand
is what I'm using here. Like, I always use it just to
share it and say, hey, I'm using this Archer and Olive notebook I
used, you know, this, you know, Cochlin fountain pen, you know,
whatever I'm kind of working with.
And I'm doing that just for the purpose of if someone's
interested to know, I want to let them know.
But that isn't saying that I'm giving them permission to take
my exact photo and then repost that on to their own account
without giving me credit. Because that is my photo, right?
Unless it's a, you know an agreement that we had on there.
And I think that's what is problematic in the community is
when brands feels if they have the right to do that when in
most cases they definitely do not because many of them don't
have that in a written agreement.
You know if you've agreed to something different story.
But if it's just like, oh they tagged me in this, I'm going to
go ahead and screenshot this and reuse this.
I've had that happen with the real before and I was like wait
a second, you didn't that's I did that.
Yes, I used your product but we did not agree to that.
You could then reuse this and it was like a screenshot at like a
screen recorded version of my real.
I was like, Oh my God, this is so bad.
I think the worst one is when they, like, take your original
piece and then they manipulate it in some way.
Like, it doesn't even have to be hardcore manipulation.
I'm talking about like chucking a filter over it or something
like that. I'm like, no, I shared this in
the most perfect way possible. How dare you, you go and change
my color grading. They're.
Like, well, I've added my own artistic flair to it.
Therefore now it is my art because I changed it from your
original. And that's just no.
Yeah. I mean, I guess where where is
the extent to which you have to change something before you can
call it an original piece? That's a whole other can of
worms and I certainly like cannot draw a line in the sand
about that. But I think that with the extent
that they were changing it, I'm like, yeah, OK, you turned the
saturation and contrast up and now it looks a little bit, but
like, I don't think that really counts.
Where do you feel like you're seeing this the most online for
yourself? Yeah, I think that probably the
most it would be on Instagram. I think that's probably the most
obvious place and I also think that it's the place where people
call it out the most, which also kind of helps.
So people kind of draw your attention to where you know, an
account or something has re shared something without
actually asking you for it. Another one though, that's
really big, I feel is blogging and Pinterest especially, but
it's like the Wild West out there.
Oh my Lord. Like the number of times I've
come across people who are including other people's work in
their blog posts without giving credit, Is it because they think
they can just like get away with it?
Or is it because like they don't want to take the time to well
reach out and ask permission for one thing or then actually go
and put the credits in like both of them?
I suppose take a little bit of time, but it's like, hey, it's
time well spent. So you're not an art faith, But
I guess not. Yeah.
And I think in most cases too, most creators would say yes.
If someone came to me and said, Mark, I really like this photo
that you used to showcase this thing.
I'm talking about my blog. Like, yeah, absolutely, you can
use it. Just tag me or, you know, link
to my Instagram or link to the post or whatever.
It's not that difficult to do as someone who writes blog post
every now and again. Like, it's not that hard because
you found that photo somewhere, right?
And especially on Pinterest, I like Pinterest is the most
dangerous place because so much is just reshared or pinned and
they're not worried about any type of attribution.
They don't care, you know, how many things do you have on a
Pinterest board? We just like the way it looks.
But then when you go to recreate it or reshare that you have to
do a little bit of extra work. I feel like with this, this is
kind of that community versus competition conversation that we
had before. It's like you have to work a
little bit harder on this to really make it good, and as
creators or even someone reposting that it's worth the
extra time. Yeah, I would 100% agree with
that. Like just going to the little
bit of extra effort to find out where the original kind of came
from. I think that Pinterest does make
it really difficult because people can pin anything and they
can pin it without credit or backlinks to wherever things
actually came from. Another one that was really big
and really difficult was I think it was called like We Hearted or
something like that. It was effectively like a
Pinterest spin off. I don't know who came first, but
it was another one where people would just re share images and
stuff without any credits or any backlinks or anything like that.
But there are ways that you can find out who the original
creator is. I just think that maybe people
aren't so familiar with how to do it and thus don't do it.
Yeah, and I was trying to think if I've ever seen this anywhere
else and on YouTube. Not that I've seen it
personally, but I was watching an episode and Mr. Beast was on
it, and the interviewer was asking him about the
beastification of YouTube, right?
And he was talking about people who will literally recreate his
videos, obviously without the sick budget like shot for shot.
And that just blows my mind because they're like, steal the
thumbnails, they'll reuse those and they'll put their face
instead of his. And then the whole video
basically is almost a shot for shot recreation.
That's the skeezy side of this. I feel like versus being like I
was inspired by this video or we do it on on this podcast.
You're actually really good at doing that.
You know, I always am like, let's give people the credit
too. But anytime we share AB roll or
a different person's video, we're giving them credit.
That's the type of thing you should do because I feel like
people want to find that. And again, obviously Mr. B is
very different than like what we're doing over here.
But, you know, just the whole idea though is just kind of
blows my mind that anybody would be so hungry, thirsty, whatever,
that they would literally take another video, a thumbnail, all
of that, and reuse it shot for a shot.
That just, I don't understand that there's no creativity in
that. Like you're literally just doing
it for the clicks and I'm assuming money, but how much
money are you really making off something like that?
Yeah, I think that there's a lot of benefit to it in terms of
learning. Like if you're trying to take it
from a standpoint of like breaking down the video,
analyzing how it works and, you know, number of scene changes,
the different, like, you know, depth of field and all of this
kind of stuff, like that's a different picture, all right?
If you're doing it for like a learning point of view, then it
makes a lot of sense to go go through and analyze with a very
fine tooth comb and all of that. But if you're then going to
effectively take that piece of work that realistically isn't
actually your creation like somebody else did it.
You're just following a template that they didn't OfferUp but
anyway, and then using that to try and get your own kind of
like monetary gain or like notoriety.
I suppose if we're thinking about it in terms of follower
amounts, it doesn't. It doesn't feel good, It just
gives me the ick. It really does.
And I think that's the overall feeling that you get the as a
creator when you see that happen.
I guess I'm trying to think if I've ever seen it anywhere.
I guess maybe I've seen it, but on Instagram, if I see something
and you're like, wait, that's this person's post and then
you're looking through and you're like, Nope, that's not
their name. And that's definitely not what
it is. I mean, I've done it before.
I'm like, hey, maybe you have a relationship with this person or
this brand. I'm just sharing this with you
to say like like I totally thought this was yours or this
was yours, but someone else just reposted the exact photo, like
just letting you know. I feel like most of the time
it's the latter. It's somebody being skeezy about
it and reusing it versus the other way around.
Have you ever had that happened to you ever, with either a photo
or a real or video, anything like that?
I have had people repost my stuff without asking.
Usually I find it and I, you know, leave a comment.
I try to be positive about like, hey, I'm really glad you liked
this enough to repost it. Next time please ask.
But what more so happens is me finding other people's work and
then I will reach out to the original creator that I saw it
from and like hey, just wanted to check in like I saw somebody
post a piece that is yours. Was that something that they
discussed with you? Like I didn't want to go like
blasting on the Internet or anything, if it was something
that you guys had an understanding about, but just
wanted to check in. And I think it's just about
building that kind of network of people in our community in
general who you can kind of just rely on each other to look out
for each other. And I think that we've gotten a
lot better at that over the years.
I think that back in the earlier days of Bullet Journal,
Instagram, it was very Wild West, probably the same for
other planner spaces. But now as people just know each
other a little bit better and you have people who have been in
it for a while and you kind of recognize their style, that you
can kind of pick them out of a lineup just makes it a little
bit easier. But what about you?
You obviously had your real happen if we had any other
instances. I don't know that if I have or
if anyone's told me about them. I mean, maybe it has, or maybe
my stuff's just not that stealable.
Nobody wants it because it looks kind of crappy.
But I think that when I do see it happen with some of these art
reshare accounts, I feel like that's where it happens the most
for me. Again, it was the reel that I
saw that was redone. And at that point, I almost kind
of feel like if you're going to do that, just ask me and I will
download it and send it to you. Like, I'd rather you repost it
with really great quality than to repost it with like all the
extra crap around the outside. Like, I I think that people
should just get more comfortable in asking.
Maybe they're scared that someone's going to say, oh,
sure, you could do that, but that's going to cost you $100 or
they're going to try to charge them for it.
And I think that that's maybe let's talk about that for a
second because you and I have both worked with different
brands. I know for myself personally.
A lot of times if something's gifted to me right, I'll share
and I'll tag them. I don't it's it's my decision
decision on what I want to do with that.
But I definitely have had it as a part of agreements before to
say you know once this is done I will share this tag you
whatever, but I'm also going to provide you essentially with the
originals and you can do whatever you want with that.
Have you done anything like that recently or any kind of things
that you could share on that that you feel like would be
helpful for the conversation? I don't know if I've, I've ever
done one with, like, the intention of, like they get to
have the picture after the fact. Like, usually there's some kind
of agreement that they'll like, you know, share a video that
I've made or something via their social channels or whatever.
But it's not so much them like posting it on their channels.
It's just sharing a link back to an original piece of my work.
So it's a little bit different. I have had a brand that I worked
with previously who I made a video for and they said, oh,
hey, we really loved your video. Can you send us the original
file so that we can use it? I'm like, no, that one is a
completely different kind of handle of fish.
If you want to do that with me, then we need to make sure that
that's an upfront discussion. We need to make sure that
there's some kind of like monetary exchange for that
because it's like I'm effectively taking my
intellectual property and just giving it to you for free.
That's a little bit different. So nowadays I I think it's
really hard to charge for that kind of stuff.
I I mean, for some people it probably isn't.
But for me, coming from a space of like, you know, oh, you know,
doing all of these collaborations with people in
exchange for free product and stuff like that.
Yes. But now that I have a bit more
of the following behind me, a bit more, I suppose, like
influence. But it's there.
You do, you know, name name it what it is kind of a thing.
It comes a bit of responsibility with that.
And I want to make sure that if I'm going to be approaching
these collaborations with people where they're going to be able
to like, you know, take my likeness, which is actually just
me and my recordings, if they're going to be using it, then they
should be some kind of like financial exchange with regards
to that, I feel. I completely agree with you,
especially with brands and I just had a conversation last
week around affiliate and relationships and things like
that. There was some stuff recently
that's been happening in the community that I personally have
just not been very happy hearing about.
And I've talked to you plenty on the side on things that have
happened to me as well. They also have happened to you.
But this idea that, you know, brands taking advantage of
creators, they know, know what they're getting out of those
deals, right. They are very much aware that
you know, if I send you this pen or this notebook, you're going
to share it. It's going to give them more
exposure. That's understood.
I think that if anybody isn't aware that that's happening, let
Jess and I be the ones to tell you.
That is why people approach you. And in most cases, right, saying
I'm going to send you this notebook for a review and a post
and all these things, you have the right to say no as a
creator, right? If they are asking, hey, you
made this YouTube video, it's OK if I record the screen and then
use this for my advertising. No, not unless you are paying me
for that or I agree that it's OK for you to do that.
Because in the long run, what people are doing is they are
taking your content, they are making money off of that and you
are not receiving any of that benefit because more than likely
they are not tagging you in that they are not taking back to your
video. They are literally downloading
that off the Internet and then using that as their own.
And I don't like to make it sound like this is like a money
grab for us, but this is how you handle business as a creator.
You know, it's not like, hey, Super Bowl, can you just go
ahead and play my 30 second commercial real quick?
You just pop it in there in between.
No, that cost $6 million to do that.
Now, I'm not saying that, you know, our Bullet Journal Review
videos should get us $6 million for that.
But would you take a look at how many people will see it or how
they're utilizing that? You should get more than a free
notebook, let's just put it that way.
Yeah, 100% agree. You should get more than a free
notebook, especially if you're, you know, sharing it with your
audience and stuff. With that idea that those people
are going to see that piece of media go back to that brand and
make purchases like you are helping to increase their
monetary, I don't know, value whatever.
So you should get something from that, even if it's just like
affiliate sales or whatever, like that's fine.
However you want to operate, it's up to you.
You are your own person, but make sure that there's something
in it for you outside of just like I got a free notebook and
they got another $500 in sales or something.
Yeah, and definitely don't worry about the size of your account.
Regardless of the size of your account that should be in there.
Jess and I have had a lot of conversations about this, even
recently talking about like rate cards and things like that.
I want to turn this into that conversation.
But the idea is regardless of the size of your account, you
don't let that happen. Doesn't matter if you have 300
followers. No one should be taking your
artwork or your videos and then reusing that for themselves.
Especially a large brand or even a medium sized or even a small
brand does not matter unless it's some type of an agreement
like don't get taken advantage of because that's not the
business that we're in here. Yeah.
I think the hard part with like I'm going to say mid to high
kind of brands, you know, larger brands, they just know better.
Like they know what they're doing and they need to do better
kind of a thing. I know that there's one example
that we can probably speak on, which was coming across an
advertisement for a specific notebook company to remain
unnamed and seeing a whole bunch of work from a bunch of
different creators on Instagram that I followed like, oh wow,
that's so exciting. Like, I didn't realize they were
working with this company. So I reached out to one of them
in particular to say like, hey, I came across your work in this
ad where you working with insert name here and they're like, no,
no, I'm not. This is the first I'm hearing of
it. That was a whole thing like
those creators. Yeah, going back to that brand
and being like, well, hey, you used my work, I'd like to get
paid now. Thank you.
Because I know that it's an advertising.
You are going to be making money off that.
So where's my kickback kind of a thing.
And then we had like the founder of the brand reaching out in the
Facebook community about the whole thing and it was, it was
messy, but also it was not handled well.
Like first of all, do not do that.
You should not be taking people's work without permission
and you definitely shouldn't be using them in your ads.
And then to jump on and be like, Oh yeah, no, it was this like
company that we were using and we didn't know they were doing
it. I'm like absolutely not.
All of that should be run through somebody on your senior
leadership team or something like that.
So I no belief, no belief in the idea that you didn't know what
was going on there. You just thought you could get
away with it and people would be happy for the exposure that you
didn't really give them because you didn't actually say that it
was from them anyways. Yeah, if you're going to use
that broadly, you would definitely want to tag or show
their name or whatever on there. It doesn't make it right that
you didn't ask for permission in the 1st place, but the least
that you could do, whether you are the brand or the agency
working for that brand, like understand the community that
you're a part of. That's why when we when we see
these things start to happen a little bit, that feels like
money grabs to me. That feels like they're taking
advantage of the community and if it wasn't for this community,
they would not be successful. And that's a really big part of
this too, is that those brands need the community to support
them, for them, to make money for them to do well, to get
notoriety, do not take advantage of the people that are here to
help you. It's part of the conversation I
was having about with the affiliate stuff is that you know
a lot of the times you see this as well the someone will e-mail
you. But like hey, I'd like to send
you this pen or this notebook and I'll let you be a part of
our affiliate program as if that is going to make you millions of
dollars, right. Like they know with those types
of things that you will probably depending on how hard you work
for it, first of all, you may only make a handful of dollars
off of that. I was using, I don't know if it
was the same one, but I think you did something with like one
of those photo printer companies at one point.
I feel like everyone has at some point because they hit you up.
It's like I think I got one sale off of that, right?
And I like made a video and I did a review and all this stuff.
This was earlier on in my career.
I was like, that was hours of work that I put into that that
potentially made them a lot of money and I made like a dollar
off of the affiliate sale. But it was just, yeah, and
that's not always the way to go. But then sometimes though it
does help, it definitely makes a little bit sweeter.
You just got to figure out what's right.
I don't know, I feel like we should have someone on that's
like a a creator lawyer or something that could help us.
We like here's actually legally what you can and can't do with
this because like, we are not professionals by any means.
No, certainly not. I think that would be a really
interesting conversation like what is actually allowable in
terms of these affiliate programs and all of that and
like how should that be approached by both the creator
and the brand to make sure that it's a very like equitable kind
of deal. I'm literally just going and
looking up like what if I made off of that, like printer
company. Type thing OK.
I'm like, all right, I made a little bit more than one sale,
which I do appreciate, but I have also used it, I think more
than you possibly have. Like I had a full series of
videos where I was using it in every one of those videos.
But it's like as you said, the amount of work that you put into
kind of like showing that showcasing the product,
nurturing your relationship with that brand.
Like you'd hope that you'd get a bit more of a kickback from it.
But it can be really, really mucky in terms of those deals
with people, especially ones where like as a smaller creator,
for instance. And I feel like they very much
take advantage of smaller creators and smaller creators
just being kind of, like, excited to be acknowledged, I
suppose. I don't think that's necessarily
the right wording for it, but it's kind of like that where
they're like, oh, I want to send you like this, this free set of
pens. And then you can do a review
video for it. And then we'll host a giveaway
with your audience kind of a thing.
And you're just like, so excited to be reached out to in that way
that you're like, Oh my God, yes, I'll do it.
I'll go above and beyond. Let me like, make you like 4
different Instagram posts for it and all of this stuff as well.
And like, I get it because I was that person and sometimes they
still am that person. But but you know, if we're going
to go to the effort put in, you know, the time, energy,
resources to make these pieces of content.
Whether they be like the artistry that you're doing in
your planner, in your notebook or whatever, or the kind of
artistry that comes with the creative journey, with making
the photos and the media around it.
Like there should be some kind of pay off from that.
We should not be letting people steamroll us, steal our stuff
without any some kind of, like, reciprocal relationship kind of
going on with that. I think we should put this into
our backlog of ideas around the affiliate programs and those
relationships. I'd be very curious and even to
hear from the other planner pals if that's something that you
would like us to talk about because I think that is just a
whole conversation as a whole. I mean I had a one hour
Instagram live on it last week just because we were just
talking about it and it was just something that really fired me
up. But I think the the most
interesting part of that were some of the comments afterwards
that were like, oh, I'm just starting off in this.
I have no idea what this looks like.
And even people who I've known for a long time in the
community, I talked about actually going through and
auditing your affiliate programs because some of them don't tell
you that they don't work anymore or they don't exist.
Right. You have to go back to there.
Like, I haven't done that. Thank you so much.
You know, kind of rethinking it. And it just got me thinking like
that would be a really great place to maybe have this
conversation would be on the podcast from two people who have
been through it doing it, you know, and and definitely I would
love to know more about your perspectives on it too.
One of the I had someone reach out to me the other day, they
were binge watching these podcast episodes and I've
already said this and shared this a lot.
They were like, I love that you and Jess can have the same
conversation and be on the same page, but sometimes have
different approaches to it. They're like, it is like the
best of both worlds for me as a listener, because I'm like, oh,
this is how Mark thinks about it.
And Jess, who does similar things, has this different
perspective. And I was like, that's one of
the reasons that this podcast I personally think works so well
and I'm so grateful that you're here with me, is that we get to
have those. So I don't know, let us know in
the comments of this video or or even in the Q&A S of stuff too.
Like, if you'd like that conversation, we'd love to hear
from you and know if it is because we're always looking for
content ideas for this thing. I love your point about the idea
of like different perspectives and stuff like that.
So obviously I mentioned that when it comes to art theft, I
suppose and like seeing it in the community and seeing
somebody like reposting or possibly even recreating without
giving credit, I'm usually the type to go back to the original
creator and say, hey, did you see this?
I feel like if it's something that bothers them, then they can
handle it. I don't want to like, you know,
jump in with my pitchfork and my torch and like start a fight
that doesn't need to happen type of a deal.
It's good of you. I feel like a lot of people jump
to that conclusion and sometimes it's not what we want to be.
And I think also too, you just don't know.
And especially with those brands like you said, you can come at
it with this, this perspective of maybe they just didn't know.
Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and the good ones will
add it back in there. Whether it's the fact that they
got caught and they're like, Oh no, I'm going to make good on
this or they just really didn't know and they will go back and
do that, like that's what we want to have those conversations
about. Ask those questions.
It's always fun to start drama, like we always want to bring
down, you know, the big man. But it's just one of those
things where I feel like let's approach it with kindness first
and then we can get upset if they're acting like a holes.
Because I mean what? It could certainly cause drama.
I don't think I told you this, but I'm like, I don't really
have a great relationship with my family as it is my my
immediate family? Fine.
My wider family, maybe not so much.
And one of the catalysts for that was actually art theft.
Yeah. So a member of my family, who
shall also remain not named, but they had produced a piece of
work, put it online, getting a lot of praise, a lot of people
wanting to kind of like purchase that piece of artwork off them
and such. And then one day on the
Internet, I came across the original piece.
So having a look at that and having a look at their
recreation, I'm like, there is no doubt in my mind that you
have effectively stolen this piece of artwork from somebody
and have tried to peddle it off as your own piece.
So I contacted the original creator to tell them what had
happened. Whistleblower Jess over there.
Yeah, I said. That's what I do.
I go back to the original and say, hey, I don't know if you
were aware of this. I don't know if you had some
kind of like agreement about this, if they purchased like a
license or something, but I just wanted to let you know that
that's what's happened. Whole thing kind of a thing.
Like we're talking like death threats, people going to court
over stuff. My.
Uncle set up a like website in mine and my mother's name
effectively like putting a whole bunch of slander and it was
messy. Just know that, like if you're
going to be approaching this kind of like art theft world
with kind of more of a like gung ho attitude, there are sometimes
repercussions that maybe you don't foresee.
But it is what it is. I believe that people should be
given credit or be, you know, asking permission on all of that
kind of stuff. And if it doesn't happen, then
yeah, I'm going to be the one who goes and calls it out.
I guess let me ask you this question.
You don't have to answer if it's like too personal, but it was
the biggest problem because they felt like you were like taking
money from them because you essentially were stopping the
sale of something that wasn't theirs.
Was that kind of the the big part of that conversation or
just the fact that you were like pissing on their parade?
I think it was probably that one just like, oh wow.
You know, somebody's doing well for themselves and you've just
come in to like light the whole thing on fire or whatever.
And I'm just like, if it's a car tower built on lies, it's not
very stable. So like, whatever.
But yeah, I, I there's always been family drama.
Anyways, I think that this was just more of like a catalyst
that set them things off. But it it goes to show that,
like if you are going to steal people's work online, you're
gonna get found out. Like it might not end up being
as big a drama as my family drama is.
It may end up being a lot bigger, actually.
You may end up getting taken to court over things and stuff
depending on like the kind of copyright, trademarks, whatever
else that people have on their work.
So just don't do it. There we go.
Save space. Yeah.
So let's continue on that. How to do it right.
Something that I think about a lot when we talk about this, I
think about like my Sunday shares that I do on Instagram.
I used to find things that I found inspirational and then on
Sunday I would post you know 15 to 20 of them.
Now I always did it with the intent of sharing the person's
handle. I always tag them in it.
So if people are doing that, they're finding something online
and re sharing it on their stories and really just it like
literally hitting the little paper airplane and sharing it to
their stories. What we're saying is like that's
OK, right? Because someone can click on
that, they can go to that original post.
That's totally fine. I I, you know, just in case
we're making anyone nervous, they're like wait a second.
I did do that. I did repost someone's thing.
Jess again, just the whistleblower, she will call you
out. But if you are sharing that way
that's OK. Right.
And and what you're saying as well as if you are going to try
to re share someone's post on your feed not in your stories.
Essentially what you're saying is you need to ask permission
first. If they say yes, that's okay.
You can repost that, but you should also be giving credit.
Probably both in A tag as well as tagging in the description as
well, right? Yeah, for sure.
I always prefer it to be both, mainly because the caption is
where a lot of people will go for the credit.
But for me to actually see that you've posted it, A tag in the
picture is the easiest way for me to get notified that it's
there. What also happens then is that
it shares on the tagged section, I suppose, on my Instagram
profile. I know that a lot of people use
that for working with brands and stuff because then it'll show up
in that space on that brand's profile unless they remove it, I
suppose. But that's the easiest way for
me to get notified that it's been shared because oftentimes
if you tag me in a comment, it gets lost.
So for anybody who's tagged me in a comment and I haven't
responded, it's not because I'm like no ignoring you or
anything. It's because genuinely I missed
the notification. Yeah, there's a lot that are
happening in there. I do the same thing.
Even stuff gets lost in the DM. I think recently.
Now Instagram has started sending you almost like DM
messages when someone has mentioned you or tagged you in
something and it sends you directly to the post.
I definitely like what they're doing with it.
I feel like the social media platforms themselves are even
trying to counteract a lot of that theft or bring more of it
to your attention, which I think is is good of them.
Now that could be totally fake. I could be making that up.
They probably don't care. But I think the fact that it is
they're bringing it more to the surface now is great.
So you don't miss those things. Especially if it's someone
trying to give gratitude or thanks, or even ask you a
question more than just like tagging you on a giveaway post.
Yeah, one of my favorite things that they recently introduced
was the idea of like invite collaborators.
So if you share a piece of work on Instagram before you like
finally post it, you can obviously tag people in the
picture itself. But you can also invite
collaborators. And if they accept being a
collaborator on your post, then it also shares to their wall,
which I think is great. We use that for Planner Pass
Podcast to share to both of our Instagrams, but I also use that
on the Year of Planning challenge.
So people who are doing that challenge, who want to share
their work with the people who also follow the Year of planning
account, they can add themselves as a collaborator.
Or rather, they can add my Account as a collaborator to
their post and then it's still theirs, it's still their
original work, it's still shares on their wall.
They get like full credits for it, but it also shares on my
wall, which means that the people who follow my account can
see it as well. I think that's a really good
step for these creators who want to have their work shared by
other brands, other share accounts and stuff like that.
I know that there was one Share Account who reached out to me
and said, hey, we're no longer doing reposts, we're doing this
collaborator thing. So if you want to be shared on
our wall, then that's the way to do it.
I thought that was really good. It was one really nice to get
the message from them because it's just like a special moment,
like you think my work is good enough to share on your account
too. Thank you.
But also it's just a really smart move because then they
don't have to go to the extra admin to try and like find the
picture with the credit in it or reshare it with the caption or
anything like that. And then it's nice and easy for
me as well because I can just put it out there like, hey, you
can add this to your wall if you want to.
If they say no, it is what it is.
If they say yes, yay. It's yeah, it's really great.
Also, when you are collaborate with other creators, I do that a
lot, especially if we are working on something together
because there is always that conversation of like, OK, well,
we worked on this together. Like who gets to post it,
essentially, who gets that credit of posting that on there,
which is great. And a lot of the brands that
follow the strict social media rules around how you tag
hashtags, ad promotion, like using all of that, all of them
are also using the collaboration function now and it's
specifically inside of their agreements now, but that's what
she'll be doing. So some of the really big brands
that I've worked with, it's interesting to see that now I
always have to remind myself I'm so used to tagging them in
there. I'm like no, no, no mark
collaborator let's, you know, put that through on there too.
So the people that are doing it right, they're doing it right.
And I and I think that's awesome and that's really smart of a
reshare account, do that too, like you said, it completely
removes the need to capture that repost to do all of that.
It's basically taken care of for them.
That's great. Yeah, it's a lot of
streamlining. And I mean, there will be some
brands who still want to do a re share in a way that's kind of
more like the traditional kind of format, especially the ones
who like, you know, reach out to you.
They ask if you could give your permission to share that piece
of work or whatnot. Permission is good.
We love that. We love permission.
A lot of the time they want to make sure that it fits their
kind of brand aesthetic or their feed kind of aesthetic, so it
makes sense that they would rather you, like, send through
an original file or take a screenshot, I suppose, or
something like that. As long as they're asked first.
That's the big thing. Even with re sharing and
collaboration, I think we should talk about ways that you can
even kind of further protect yourself with things like this
because yes, the collaboration and function is great.
They may or may not be seeing it or seeing your name on there
knowing where it's coming from. I think specifically with brands
as well, this is really important but it does take an
extra step that you have to do and I think this is a really
important part of being a creator and really protecting
yourself. The first thing we definitely
wanted to talk about was creating a watermark for
yourself on your pieces. And you know, this is one of
those things that you know if people are really trying to be
sneaky about it. There are way too many photo
manipulation apps out there where people will just get rid
of it. But like, how do you do it in a
way that is both tasteful without ruining your picture?
Like, you don't just plaster your whole thing with it, and
some people do, but you also don't wanna put just like your
tandle tag in the bottom corner where someone could easily just
crop it out. What are some ways that you feel
like, whether you've used it or you've seen it, where people
have used watermarks tastefully in a really professional way?
Yeah, I know that some people actually will like write on
their platter layouts, their name, which, you know, that's
one way to do it. But often times if you're
creating something in your platter, you want it to look a
specific way and maybe having your handwritten handle on there
isn't really the vibe. One that I've seen that's really
cool is I don't know who it is, but they have a hand lettering
piece on a stone and they put the stone in all of the.
Oh, I've seen that. I see a lot of the calligraphers
and hand letterers doing that. That's really smart.
Yeah, I think it's a very tasteful way to do it.
Also, it kind of like almost ends up being like a mascot
that's in all of your pictures, which is it has its own
characteristics. It has a name.
I'm going to call it Francesca. Oh my gosh.
But it's a very cute little addition to all of the pictures.
It also lets people know, like, that is a picture from this
creator. It's that kind of like repeated
element that just goes and builds that person's brand,
which is really cool. Otherwise that I've seen it done
would just be with like transparent text.
So it's not super noticeable, but it is definitely there.
That's the one that I prefer to do and typically rather than
putting it in the corner unless I'm being lazy.
So sometimes it's the corner, but typically what I'll do is
I'll align it with my journal so that it's like right against the
edge of the journal. But I also use a background that
isn't one colour, so it's a little bit harder to then go and
remove that. I mean, people can still do it
with AI generative tools nowadays.
It's probably very easy to do, but not going to pay for that.
So there are ways, but it is still like more effort from the
thief's perspective than it is for me.
Just putting this little piece of text on that says like, hey,
this is mine. If you were to have an item that
you would put in all of your posts.
See, my thing is I would forget the damn thing all the time.
But what would you put in yours if you were to have a thing?
Oh no. Like, the first thing that came
to mind was a Coke 0. But then, I'm definitely
building Coke's friend, not mine.
Yeah, you've been touting them for years just now, like.
I know, right? Where's my sponsorship?
Oh, my gosh. Oh, oh, I know what it would be.
It'd be Timmy the tiny Turtle. Look at Timmy the Tiny Turtle.
He's so cute. There we go.
Beauty Blogger him. Oh, look at him.
Love the details. Did you make that?
Yes. Absolutely not.
It looks handmade. It probably is.
This is from Bath. I got this when I was five years
old. I'm not very sentimental.
I don't really like keep stuff. So Timmy the tiny turtle or his
tiny car, but I'm going to show it to.
Timmy the tiny turtle has a tiny car of his own.
Did he come with that or is that a extra OK?
Absolutely not. This one was from my mum and
it's hard to see, but it has these little brushes on the
inside. Oh yeah, So it's a desk cleaner.
So when you roll it along the little, the little things just
go like. Oh, I love that I have my
little. I have my little vacuum cleaner
here. That's not as cool as that.
I want the little sweeper. That's so cute.
Oh my gosh, you need Does your little vacuum have Google eyes?
It needs little Google eyes. No, it maybe it should and I
would use it more often. I always forget to use it
because I'm so used to not having it, you know.
So I like wipe off all the erasers shavings from what I'm
doing and I'm just like they're in the picture.
I can get rid of it later, but I should use it more often.
I think that if I were to do something like that, I would
probably want to find a pen or something that could be
engraved. I was actually just thinking
about that recently with the, the Tom studio, the Lumos,
because I know you can get these engraved like missed opportunity
when I bought mine because that's just not something that I
really think about. Because I think if I were to put
something in mind, I would want to have it to do with what I'm
doing. So it just felt more natural
than what I usually do. Well, not that I usually do.
I sometimes do, which is the little like watermark or my name
on there somewhere. But I'll be honest with you,
maybe it's because I haven't had a lot of my stuff like stolen.
I don't think people are looking for my stuff online to reuse.
They're like, this is not as cool as think it is, Mark.
We do not want to reshare it, do not worry.
So maybe that's why I don't do it as much.
I think it totally pays to having that set up though.
Because otherwise what happens is that you end up sharing
something that really like sparks off.
Like people really want to share that far and wide and then you
don't have any credit to yourself in there.
So they're taking that picture of yours, They're re sharing it.
It has no credit, no link back to you whatsoever.
And then because like one person shares it, then somebody else
shares it and yadda yadda and now it's all over the Internet
and people are recreating it. They're like, I found this on
Pinterest. You're like, cool, so glad you
liked the thing that I made. Can you tell this is from
personal experience? Yeah, it's definitely one of
those things that I think it has to happen to you for you to be
like, yeah, this is something that I need to worry about.
Something else that we mentioned that you can do if you are
concerned about someone stealing it.
And this is something that I have only ever done for non
bullet journal reasons, but is a Google reverse image search.
You want to talk about that one a little bit more for the
planner piles? Yeah, so this one is super
helpful, especially if you want to find and give credit to
people, which is great. But if you're using it in terms
of protecting yourself, it's effectively just taking pieces
of work that you've shared online in particular, like
static images, and using Google's reverse image search to
find other instances where that's been shared online.
Now sometimes it brings up pictures that aren't actually
the original, which probably just means that not a lot of
people have shared it, which is a good thing.
We don't want people to be sharing without giving credit,
but sometimes you will come across a couple of instances
where people have shared your work, so it is one tool that you
can use. As I said though, it can be
really good for finding the original creator of things.
So if you found a piece on Pinterest, just download the
image, Chuck it through the Google reverse image search, and
oftentimes you'll be able to find the original creator, which
is really cool. Well, very much to the
conversation we had earlier about that community and, you
know, being representational of that community that you're in,
do that extra work, it's definitely worth it.
I think that you would expect someone to do that for you,
right? If they're finding something, so
taking that extra time just to throw something inside of a
reverse image search to like do your due diligence, like maybe
you can't find it. You know, I I feel like a lot of
that. You only want to spend so much
time on it. You're like, I will do a quick
image search or a quick Google search, but I'm not going to go
on this whole detective sleuthing adventure to repost
something. I'll just find something else to
do. Like, you know, like that's what
I feel like you would kind of, I don't know for myself that's
where I would be inside of it. Or how do you feel about that?
I guess when you're coming across that?
Are you doing like pure due diligence, like lawfully doing
it? I do try to.
I I try my darndest to make sure that I'm giving credit to the
original. And if I can't find credit to
the original, I'll usually state that I couldn't find it.
But here's where I got to kind of a thing, because then the
other detectives on the Internet can do the work for me.
They can tell me where to look because people love getting to
the bottom of a mystery. So often times if I do have a
where I I can't find the original creator.
I'll say I saw it here, but I don't think that's the original
or I saw it here, but I know that's not the original.
If you know who it is though, please do reach out and I will
update this caption or something like that.
I've had that a couple of times before because I do very much
try. I'm like, you know, using my
Google reverse image search. I'm hunting through the
Pinterest chains of things and whatnot.
I think the worst one that I've seen, the one that irks me the
most probably, and it's probably the most common, is when people
give credit to the Share Account.
They're like, Oh yeah, like a recreation of whoever, you know,
it happens quite often. That one's always quite
upsetting. If you're the original creator
and seeing people give a whole bunch of credit to someone else,
you're like, but I did that. I've definitely been in that
situation with the Sunday shares where I will have found
something online that I really liked and I saved it.
That's just how I work. I believe in working while
you're scrolling, you know. They do the same thing with
reels, like with scrolling entertainment.
I'm like, oh, I like that sound, save that for later.
But I do the same exact thing. And there have been a few times
on, like, I go back through it, I rewatch and re listen to
everything. I make like more than I actually
should. And even my own stories.
I'm like, oh, let me go back and see.
And then sometimes, like, oh crap, Mark, you reshared the
Share Account you didn't take the time to go through.
And then I'll take it down and then research it again and find
the right person because it it can go pretty deep.
Like it's really bad when like the reshare is resharing from a
another re Share Account. You know, they're just literally
pulling all these interesting things off the Internet and
you're like, I can't even find the original creator because
nobody is trying to give them credit for anything and everyone
is trying to take credit for this really amazing piece that
they've worked on. It's it's a vicious cycle.
So I think the best thing that we can do as a planner community
is try to break it where you can.
I feel like you're doing a a really good job of that, Jess.
Why Thank you. One of the things I do try and
do anytime I find something that has been shared by a Share
Account, especially if I'm going to save it for my own
inspiration for later, I will in the there and now.
Then I will go and make sure I try and find the original
because oftentimes when I come back to it later, too many
spoons, I don't want to do it or I just forget to do it.
If you're following a shared account that has shared a
picture that you really like the look of, just check in the
caption, go to the original creator and then save their
original work instead. Because it means that when you
come to use that as inspiration, you can give credit a lot
easier. You're doing future you a
favour. We love that.
We absolutely do. So if you have anything that you
have used for yourself, planner pals, either as a way to protect
yourself or if you've come across the situation, definitely
let us know. You know, Reach out to us in the
comments or e-mail us as well. You can always do that.
We'd love to hear those stories, too.
Through this conversation, we're not trying to call anybody out
unless you're a brand who stole somebody's artwork.
But oftentimes, especially if we're just starting out in a
community when we're kind of finding our feet, you will
stumble into these mistakes without realizing you're doing
it. So please, we do not think that
we're trying to like, come out with our what, pitchfork and
torch and stuff and set your house on fire.
That's not the aim here. We just want to make sure that
people are doing their diligence, you know, finding out
who the original creators of things are, giving credit, where
credit is due. Because I think the big thing to
take from this is like, just because it's a recreation or
inspired by does not lessen the effort that you've done on it,
All right? Even the person who's watching
through Mr. Beast's video and taking, like, you know, screen
by screen grabs and trying to figure out what they're doing,
that's a lot of effort. We're not going to do that, all
right? We're not trying to diminish
your efforts here. So if you're recreating
something from someone else, if you're, you know, taking
inspiration from it and putting that stuff in your own planet,
it is not going to detract from the effort you put in.
But if you give credit to the person who originally did it or
the person that you saw it from, you're helping to build that
community up. And at the end of the day, like,
things are better with friends. Yeah, they absolutely are.
That's what Planner Palace is all about, right?
Talking about fun stuff and having fun with our Planner
French. You can't beat it.
So in our next episode though, I know Mark is very excited about
that. Mark, you want to tell us what
we're going to be doing? Yes, so this is one of the ideas
that I jotted down when Jess and I first agreed.
Well, when Jess agreed to do this podcast along with me and
her amazing organizational stuff was like, well, let's write down
a bunch of ideas and stuff we want to talk about.
Meanwhile, I'm like, oh, not flying by the seat of wear pants
like my last one. I wrote down this idea of a
stationary version of never have I ever.
So if you've ever played never have I ever.
It's usually a drinking game. You're usually like with your
pals and you're hanging out and you're sharing these deep, dark
secrets of like, never have I ever done XY and Z.
And then, you know, you take a shot if you have done it as a
way of saying like, yeah, but I did it without being, like,
telling your whole story. I thought that we could do a
stationary version of this, but we need our planner pals to help
us out here. So what we want to do is get
never have I ever scenarios from you that we will then include
inside of next episode. So here's an example of a never
have I ever. And then Jess and I will show
you an example of what that looks like.
All right, So never have I ever thrown away a pen before it ran
out of ink. What may never.
So I definitely have done that. Yeah, pop over that big one.
You got there. Take a big long sip of that.
Or if you don't want to take a sip of your water or whatever
you're drinking, you could just tick down inside of your journal
or a piece of paper, like, Yep, I did that.
And what we want to do is that by the end of that episode,
we're going to go ahead and tally up how many times you have
done that thing. So go ahead and comment, if
you're watching this on YouTube, drop it in the comments.
Let us know what your never have I ever is.
You can also e-mail us at plannerpalspodcast@gmail.com.
You can also drop a comment on our Never have I ever post over
on Instagram. Planner Pals podcast is where
you can find us there. We'll collect all of those.
We'll pick out the absolute best and we'll have a Never Have I
ever episode on our next one. So I'm so excited about this
one. I I know we're going to get some
good ones and have some fantastic stories to share along
with this too. And I absolutely can't wait.
I'm going to bring my water. I'm going to be hydrated as
heck, right? You know, it doesn't have to be
a drinking drinking game because hydration is important, but we
would love it if you played along with us very much.
Looking forward to seeing what people have to say.
But until our next episode, thank you Planet Pals for
watching and we will see you in the next one.