It’s come to my attention that Kurv Studios is doing a live training course based on my book LW8 Cartoon Character Creation volume 1. He’s promoted this training by mentioning me, my books and my characters as if there’s some cross-promotion or that it’s supported by me or Wordware. The fact is that it has nothing at all to do with me or Wordware.
As well as the promotion, Kurv Studios has also infringed copyright by using exact copies of many of my chapter names in the actual training itself. Now I don’t assume to own the process of creating characters, but stealing my chapter names and even stating “This character will be similar to the introduction character in the book, LightWave 3D 8 Cartoon Character Creation” and “This character will be similar to the advanced character in the book, LightWave 3D 8 Cartoon Character Creation” makes it very obvious that the training is heavily based on my book.
My suggestion to Kurv Studios is to try creating original content instead of stealing other people’s hard work, and don’t try to sell copies of other people’s training when people can buy the original high quality training from Amazon for less money.
This does not sound like a good way to create training material. If this is true, then you should try to get this series at least stopped or re-done using original content. Especially considering, it is completely different publishers. Hope this can be peacably worked out.
I really enjoy your work Jonny and have enjoyed your books. I’m sorry to have heard about this, is there anything we can do to help? I fully support you and your work and I’m distressed that those in the lightwave community would be so unethical.
Even better, have you tried talking to Kurv (Studios) about this ? I 'd try to resolve this in good will first, before taking the whole thing up with lawyers etc.
Attempts have been made to resolve the matter directly with Kurv Studios without success, and from there it’s up to Wordware to decide about legal action.
The main reason for my post is just to let people know that Wordware and I don’t support it.
That’s good to know, plagerisum is a horrible thing to impose on any artist or author. We all work very hard for what we do, and it’s just sad to see others try to get ahead by taking short cuts.
If someone respects your work and talent that much, they should just direct people to you instead of trying to hitch a ride on your coattails. I learned a lot of great things from your books and your lecture at the D.A.V.E.school.
This whole thing really bothers me a great deal. it’s one thing to download someones work from the internet without purchasing it; be it music, videos, training material - the list goes on.
But this is a case in which someone did something to make a profit without concent or compensation. That is wrong on so many levels.
I was just reading one of your books minutes ago. I have also purchased videos from Kurv. This is very unfortunate. I wish you the best of luck resolving this issue.
i really hope this is a mis communcation or simple error on behalf of kurv, i would like to think a publishing house such as that would up hold the values of none plagarism especially in small community such as the lightwave one…
however i fear the worst…
good luck to you… i enjoy your work immensley and would love to see more of your tutorials
in the future…
Maybe they think that it’s no big deal. you’re just one person and there’s not a lot you can do, but why not get a petition together and show Kurv that it’s not just you they’re dealing with.
Bad reputations are not good for any business.
Have you posted on Spinquad?..I don’t visit there anymore because of some dubious activity from Kurv but you’re more likely to have an impact on there.
Good luck sorting it out and you can count on my signature too
First and foremost, Jonny is a GREAT artist and a great guy… I think this is all a misunderstanding based on our marketing and mentioning Jonny’s books.
We don’t have ANY wish for this to get ugly at all… we just want to make our side clear on this. Questioning our ethics in an online forum requires our response.
But… we in no way want to put Jonny in a bad light here…
We are not doing training based on your book Jonny, we reference your books title because the artist doing the training for us, is the same artist that is doing the updates to your book on LightWave 3D 8.
Below is the character we are doing in the training sessions.
This looks nothing like Jonny’s characters at all… we had this discussion on the NewTek threads aready, but it seems they killed the thread, glad NewTek has some class.
So lets talk about this.
I worked for Wordware for 6 years, and was actually the key person at Wordware who made all of the LightWave titles they currently have, even the latest Essentials book which I got the contracts signed for possible.
So I was Jonny’s key contact there while he was doing his book. I say this only because there is no mention of the fact that Jonny and I talked before, for a few years we talked.
Jonny never contacted me about this issue… Jonny is upset with me personally because we pulled a thread down over at SpinQuad he posted becasue we were asked to by a company who said they owned the copyright to the work he was posting.
I tried to explain to Jonny that we had no choice in the matter of pulling the thread or not pulling the thread, we had to if someone else claimed they owned the copyright… and they actually gave us model sheets so, we did not have a choice.
Jonny got VERY upset with me over this… I tried to explain he needed to talk to the contact at the company, who he knew but he would rather stay upset with me.
I post this information ONLY to let you know why Jonny is coming after me here. He has not talked to me since that incident… regretably as I liked jonny.
Jonny says he does not want to start a pissing match and posted the following over at NewTek.
As I said over there Kretin,
What are we supposed to call our sessions on creating Morphs, or Rigging, ect… You simply DONT own the rights to these terms. We have every right to provide training on cartoon character modeling and the fact that your book is very old, is another great reason to do training on it.
As far as referencing a book, thats like saying you can not reference a studio you used to work for. Just because you leave, does not mean you can not reference it.
The work were doing is nothing close to Jonny’s work other than being a cartoon character.
Jonny, I never said you or Wordware supported the training were doing. I never said you endorsed it. I simply mentioned the book because the artist is doing the rewrite. How am I supposed to mention Steve is doing a rewrite with out mentioning the book.
Jonny, when I say similar, we are referring to all the things that make an introductory character… introductory. I am sorry you took that as were copying you. Again, if you had contacted me directly in private about this issue… I would have changed that immediately and assured you were not copying anything you did. You know I have the utmost respect for you and your work.
You act as if you contacted and and you did not. Tim McEvoy at Wordware, my old boss contacted me and we responded to him with in minutes.
As I told Tim at Wordware on Thursday, we agreed to send a new newsletter out removing any reference to the book. We are doing that simply out of respect.
We take ethics very seriously at KURV studios. So what this all boils down to is Jonny or Wordware is upset that we referenced them in our marketing material. Again, Steve is working on the rewrite for Jonny’s books which makes our information perfectly pertinent.
Randy you should be very careful what you say without proper knowledge of the facts. As a representative of Sony Imageworks you need to be very careful what you accuse people of. You come across as libelous here in this statement.
Isn’t it all time the same with him - badmouthing against people he don’t like, it’s more than unprofessional !
Kurv, I can’t wait to attend the training, count me in, I’m also sure there are more than few people to do the online training!
Also to clear that bad thing here.
Jonny, I love your CCC books - It would be awesome to have more books that way of explaining!
I don’t represent SPI - and I never said I did; other than the fact it is in my signature, which is hardly a representatino of my employer.
As far as being careful as to what I say; I can say what ever the hell I want to say. First and foremost I stated how I felt about the siruation and recomended that he consider retaining counsel. Hardly something that could be considered an attack on your person or your company. Talking to counsel about the situation is to protect his individual rights and intellectual property. As a business owner, and someone who generates distributed media, I would think you would understand this.
