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Tuesday 27 April 2010

COVER ART PLAGIARISM?

Does these book covers look the same to you or am I seeing doubles? Note that these books were published by different publishers and written by different authors. Plagiarism is hot on the blogosphere lately... does this come under plagiarism as well?

15 comments:

Brooke Reviews said...

Tons of covers are the same, it's because they use stock images. :)I like the one on the right better though.

Shy said...

I believe Alea @ Pop Culture Junkie did a lot of this "Lookalike" post, which features cover art that looks pretty much alike. You may check it out here. I'm not sure if this is a kind of plagiarism though...

Tales of Whimsy said...

Stupid stock photography. I wish they would be more creative.

I feel ya gf! :D

Cherry said...

Brooke - yeah, I like the one on the right better too :)

Shy - thanks for pointing out Alea's blog ot me! I went over and had a little nosey :)

So, when does "plagiarism" become plagiarism and when does it not?

Lexie said...

Cherry--cover art is a trickier matter since photo cover art is usually from stock image servers. You're far less likely to find duplicate painted cover art, though it does happen (Kinuko Y. Craft's art is abundant, as if Rowena's or Jody Lynn Nye).

cover art is far more likely to come under fire for someone's face who isn't supposed to be stock images is used (as it happened with Patti O'Shea) or for depicting the character the wrong ethnicity (like with Liar).

Melissa Walker said...

I talk to authors about their covers a lot for my blog, and it's fascinating to hear about stock photos vs. photo shoots (some authors even get to GO on the photo shoots, but that's rare).

I don't mind stock photos if they perfectly capture the book's insides though.

Alea said...

No this is not plagiarism. As far as I know these are just instances of people buying the same stock imagery and both using it for book covers (or really anything else for that matter). I guess the only it would be "wrong" is if someone had a special photo shoot where they got exclusive rights to a picture and someone else stole the picture to use for their own use (but really who's going to do that haha! and how?) I don't think anyone wants their book cover to look like someone else's it's just an accident, because there really isn't that much stock photography in the world and people gravitate towards the better photos out there. Some publishers go so far as to change covers when they find out it resembles something else. Hope that makes sense!

Alea said...

Here are a few stock photo sites too, to see where these sorts of images might come from.

http://www.istockphoto.com/index.php
http://www.gettyimages.com/

Cheryl said...

They look a lot alike to me. I didn't realize they used stock images. I thought they would find peoople that looked the part and make that their ocver.

Gaby G said...

I have seen a lot of covers like this. I believe they use stock images...but I don't understand how they cannot notice someone is using the same image!
I don't think its plagiarism, I believe it is "stupidism" xD

Sweet Vernal Zephyr said...

I had a similar post with a different stock art photo up just yesterday here...

Chris at Stumbling Over Chaos does a series of fun posts focusing on this phenomenon called Misadventures of Stock Photography.

Miranda ~ Sweet Vernal Zephyr

MangaCat said...

Haha I love this xD (Although if I ever get published and my book has the same cover I would be annoyed as hell)

My design background bugging me, the one on the right isn't done very well, so yeah....... >.<

Vanessa said...

you have to wonder how much researcg the cover designer did before hitting the stock photos...

Melissa (My World...in words and pages) said...

WOW! What a catch. I don't know, does that fall in the plagiarism category? Those pictures really look like the same picture.

Wings said...

they use stock images.

i was sad when i found out it was all stock because it doesnt make the cover unique.

stupid publishers

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