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Hey JumpStart team and Dress to Impress users,

Recently some folks showed evidence that the newly-released Spring Korbat Toy art was copied from this image on the Neopets fan site Suta-Ratio. And, today, JumpStart issued a formal response.

…I feel kinda uncomfortable getting involved in this. But, since we’re officially affiliated with Neopets and our sheer existence helps them make money, I was even more uncomfortable letting this news fly under the radar. So, um, here goes.

Comparing the Images

First, here’s the Spring Korbat Toy (released in 2015) and the Suta-Raito image (which has provably been around since 2010), so that you can compare them.

In case it helps, here’s what happens when you superimpose the images together. (A Dress to Impress user created this image and gave me permission to use it here — thanks!)

It’s definitely true that the Korbat’s tail and right wing don’t quite match — perhaps because the original tail would cover up the spring, and the original right wing wouldn’t fit in the frame. But the ears, head, eyes, eyebrows, nose, mouth, arms, left wing, bottom of the right wing, torso, and feet all line up perfectly.

While the images aren’t identical, they’re clearly way too similar for this to be coincidence.

The Official JumpStart Response

Still, the official Neoboards thread “Item Image Similarity Update” claims exactly that:

Hello! So we’ve heard quite a few rumblings about a similarity between a newly released item and a user’s fan art, and we wanted to clear some things up! First of all, we appreciate and really encourage Neopets fan art, and would never use it as our own, especially without permission from the artist. Now, the item in question was independently created completely by our in-house team. It was created based on references of the basic green Korbat image and other existing springy toys, particularly the Blumaroo toy, which is also in a similar pose. The two images do look very similar, but we promise you, it is just a coincidence.

So, to the JumpStart management team: It’s clear that this artist traced the Suta-Raito image, then, when confronted, lied about it. I understand wanting to side with your employees, and that’s good — but only when the employee is actually right.

Instead, this is one of those times when an employee screwed up big, and it’s important for the company to own that. Awkward as it might be, the only way forward to stand with the Suta-Raito team and the Neopets community — but, instead, this response damaged the relationship even further.

Aside: Is this legal? Ehh, probably not.

The United States has a concept of fair use, which sometimes allows you to create something that uses copyrighted material, depending on what you’re creating, why you created it, how much of the original work you reuse, and how your creation affects the original artist.

But the law doesn’t set any clear, objective rules about fair use; instead, it’s up to judges to decide whether a given work constitutes fair use, based on the results of past lawsuits and their own common sense.

So, if this case went to court, it’s not immediately clear what would happen. It’d be up to the judge to decide whether the JumpStart work is, in its own right, sufficiently creative to justify reusing the entire Suta-Raito work without attribution.

(That said, the art-tracing stuff sounds a lot like Rogers v. Koons, which was ruled to be a case of copyright infringement… but I’m not a lawyer, and there are also some trademark issues at play here, so take that with a grain of salt :P)

Regardless, it’s not okay.

Using someone else’s work without attribution is severely frowned upon in the artist community. You get in big trouble, even if you didn’t realize that folks consider unattributed derivative works to be stealing.

And, if you make the explicit claim that the derivative work is fully original (as the JumpStart team did in this Neoboards post), then you’ve outright lied to the community’s face; you completely lose their respect with no hope of ever earning it back, no matter what.

It’s bad, no question. And the artist who copied Suta-Raito knew it, too. But they did it anyway, presumably thinking that they wouldn’t get caught.

Moving Forward

So, this was definitely a screw-up, and the folks in the Neopets community feel disrespected and even less willing to trust the JumpStart team than before. That’s bad news.

Thankfully, the path toward repairing this relationship is clear:

Retract the current statement. That doesn’t just mean deleting what’s posted now. Instead, it means announcing just as publicly that, because this employee lied to you, you claimed that the work was original, which you now know to be false. Awkward, I know, but it’s critical to rebuilding the trust.

Delete the stolen art. It’s okay to even leave it as a broken image for a few days while you draw a replacement image; it’s just definitely not okay to continue to redistribute an infringing work now that you know it’s infringing.

Apologize to the original artist. You can even just do it in the retraction. Her name is Krista Staggs. She’s a freelance artist, folks can support her work on Patreon (check it out if you’re interested!), and she’s been handling this whole ordeal like a champ. (I was using your art on my petpage all the way back in middle school, Krista! Thanks for all you do <3)

Still, I get that apologizing to customers is hard and scary. But, in situations like these, apologizing is the bare minimum required to hold onto the users who are paying attention. These are the Premium users, the high-volume NC customizers, the users who stick around for years — that is, these users who constitute your most consistent source of income. They were wary of JumpStart in the first place, and they want to stick around for years to come, but they need to be able to trust you. If you prove now that they can’t trust you, then they’ll leave you forever.

(Incidentally, I mentioned I felt uncomfortable, and this is sorta why: I want to be able to stand by y’all as an official Recommended Fan Site, but, if I’m not sure I can trust you, then I’m not sure I can stand by you. If we need to talk about that, then I’m always available at [email protected]. But don’t get too worried, DTI friends — there’s only an issue if nothing changes, and I think things will start changing soon :D)

Anyway, all that aside, here’s the thing about this strategy: it’s easy to do, and it will work — take it from someone who’s known this community for a decade :) I know you can come back from this, so long as you quickly and decisively stand with your community.

Thanks for reading, thanks for all your hard work, and here’s looking forward to a Neopets that we can all continue to love for years to come.

And big thanks to all my Dress to Impress friends! No matter what happens, I’m confident that this community will live on for a very long time <3