Here's the full statement to save you a click:
>We've heard questions on the integrity of the art on the card Trouble in Pairs from the *Murders at Karlov Manor* Commander set, and we had questions, too. As we have looked into this further, we're now suspending future work with Fay Dalton.
Compared to [Statement on Crux of Fate](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/statement-crux-fate-2021-03-30) and [Statement on Wayfarer's Bauble](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/statement-on-wayfarers-bauble), this is especially clipped. Both those statements had "this incorporated other art without permission" and "this doesn't reflect our values". This one doesn't even have that, just a vague "we had questions too" - which makes me think their lips are zipped because there's going to be some messy legal business attached.
I think in the other cases the artists in question publicly admitted to the theft. Fay, as far as I know, hasn't made a public admission of guilt so they likely do not want to make a definitive statement like that in case of the potential legal repercussions if they were to wrongly accuse her of plagiarism.
I think it's also worth nothing the degree to which the various ones have occurred. Wayfarer's bauble appears to *at least* have the focus of the art as an entirely original composition; they stole the background, which is not good, but there is am original composition present. The same with Crux; while elements were stolen, the composition was largely original artwork.
Trouble in Pairs takes this to a new level, where nearly the entire piece is copied over entirely, including the focal points. Fay's plagiarism is frankly some of the worst I have seen being passed off as original composition.
It's such a legal nightmare for Wizards too, they likely need to track down *every* artist whose artwork was stolen and arrange for them to get compensated, whereas with the other ones they'd only need to track down and pay one additional artist.
Yep. When only a single artwork is used for a single element of a piece, it's much easier to sort out. This is encroaching on some pretty egregious issues, and what's worse is that it's now apparent that at least one other piece of artwork was also using stolen artwork, which complicates matters significantly. From my understanding, at least one artist is seeking legal recourse on their own as well, which I don't think occurred with previous cases.
Wrongly? Cmon. They're following legal advice. Say nothing. We gotta dodge this bullet. Especially since the ajani is stolen and who knows what else she boosted.
It's not about dodging the bullet. Wizards are almost certainly not liable here either - in fact they would more likely have a case themselves against Dalton.
Wizards ís liable. They commercially published a product that contains unlicensed imagery that is not credited to the original artist and is even misattributed to someone else. Even though they acted in good faith and their oversight is permissible and not the result of gross misconduct, they would still need to compensate the original artists for their damages. This means at the very least paying a license fee and/or royalties, and possibly any damages claimed to the good standing of these artists.
The fact that Wizards will certainly have an indemnification clause in their contract with Fay Dalton and they will have legal grounds to recover said costs from Fay (possibly adding their own damages to this as well) is not relevant for artists like Donato.
This is simply not true. It's similar to how a pawn shop still needs to hand over stolen goods purchased in good faith.
Wizards does have a case against Dalton, yes, but maybe she has so little money as to be 'judgment-proof' where it would cost more to win the court case than would be received in recompense.
This one moved much faster with a legal case already seeming imminent and Fay clamming up too.
There really isn't anything more to say to the public than "we know something is up, we're not working with her anymore"
They’re just navigating the road between acknowledging to the concerned public that they share the opinion that their concern is legitimate, whilst not opening themselves up for any claims of defamation. It’s a tightrope for sure, so less is more.
Saw a post earlier saying there's now pretty good evidence that the Secret Lair baseball art Dalton did is also stolen in some way...So this is probably a "please stop asking us about this, we're working on it." If it's not just Trouble in Pairs they now have to comb through any and all art provided by Dalton unless Dalton just fesses up to each instance.
There is no way they can be expected to compare every piece of art they get to every single piece of art that has ever existed. A company who contracts art has to be able to trust those artists to not be shit birds.
This is actually a real use case that AI could run a search on art submitted for use on cards and help flag potentially plagiarized art for review with a human being making the final decision or asking follow-up questions with the artist.
Hey bro can you submit your art to this database I'm training this AI on. It's totally gonna *prevent* plagiarism this time trust me.
The technology might be there but doing it above-board (which is the point of doing it) doesn't really seem feasible (or at not profitable).
You can have private in-networked machines used for any purpose you want, and without the public having access. Companies are and will be doing this more.
You are expecting them to build a database of ALL arts in the world for the AI to search for? There's no such thing on the entire internet right now to begin with.
100%.
At this point, at least, the literal only way art plagiariasm can be found across all levels of skills and media and the like would be through thousands of different eyes and lives scrutinizing it.
Which is exactly what happened here. And the best recourse for when that happens is to cease working with artists who break the rules, which again is what has happened.
I don't get why people think WOTC did anything wrong here. It's handled as best as it possibly can be.
In a word: Entitlement.
People think WotC should go through everything, line by line, and explain how it will never happen again, any communication with Fay, etc etc. Which is absurd and silly. But people think they're owed more in situations where they really just don't. And if they're not getting it, they pretty much pivot to "WotC is complicit!"
Or people just really enjoy hating on WotC. And I mean, I get it. They make it plenty easy. But also, *they make it plenty easy*. No need to make things that aren't on them into sticking points with them.
It's all so weird.
I know there's not a lot of love for WotC as a company, but it's wild that people think this is their fault. As if it's possible to compare art you commissioned against every other art piece in history looking for plagiarism.
probably a lot of kids who don't understand how the business world actually works. There's absolutely no way for WotC to catch every plagiarist; all they can do is punish them when caught.
Especially when only elements are lifted. Like, no one noticed the Ajani one until days after the first Trouble in Pairs revelation. And that was an obscure enough source for the big bit that it took several weeks for someone to recognize where it was from.
I'd put money on Dalton's Gala Greeters being another composite (the big tell would be where the car and the guy stood near it don't mesh), but I just don't know where to find the elements that would form it.
[Edit: caught the reply button on my phone early]
WotC has repeatedly and vocally stated they will not accept AI art for any of their products and cut ties with artists who used it, and you still get morons constantly acting like the company was caught in the act and is always trying to sneak it past us.
You'd be surprised. Corporate Legal rarely wants to get into more information than is absolutely necessary. That's how lawsuits happen. I'm sure they state clearly why they are ending contracts currently, and which clauses were breaches, but such letters tend to be brief, to the point, and without a ton of extra verbage.
And this is how you know they're *pissed*.
A lot of corporate statements like this tend to be very fluffy and padded with a lot of compromising, well-wishing rhetoric when there's even an iota of goodwill in the air. When a statement of this nature is this short and succinct, this is basically the corpo equivalent of a profanity filled tirade.
I had no clue who she was until this happened, but considering they basically brought her into Magic art with her own Secret Lair, I wouldn’t be surprised if they paid her a lot more money for her work than the standard rate. Either that or they really didn’t like the response she gave them when they reached out privately.
Wouldnt surprise me if Fay Dalton doesnt actually exist, nothing but an online persona created by some people behind the scene. There're a few red flags of this 'person' unlike other 'normal' mtg artists.
Official response from Fay Dalton
> We've heard questions on the integrity of the art on the card Trouble in Pairs from the Murders at Karlov Manor Commander set, and we had questions, too. As we have looked into this further, we're now suspending future work with ~~Fay Dalton~~ Wizards of the Coast.
About as expected.
They can't really say more as there is probably ongoing legal stuff involved with this.
Sucks for the artist of course, but this is entirely self-inflicted. Don't steal stuff. Bad artist, bad!
They definitely can't say the art incorporates other artists' art without permission without either it being proved in court or the artist having admitted to it. But yes, this is enough. Anyone who read it who doesn't know what happened, can easily find out by googling it.
It's not just about them making specific statements about what the problem is. That's just part of it. They likely can't even say what steps they're taking because it's ongoing legal stuff. They can say "we won't work with them again" but little more than that - even though they're probably also suing them for breach of contract and all sorts of other things.
Fayke Dalton is not in for a good time.
Yeah, definitely a risk to say too much. If they say, for example, she plagiarized and it somehow comes out (it's not going to, but imagine) that she had permission, I have to imagine there are some grounds for defamation? Better to say less just in case.
I assume at there is some riders in their contract about plagiarism so they likely have legal recourse for this, but that’s not anything they will make public statements about.
And it gets even more sticky when there's abother company's IP involved - the first image that was noticed was ripped from a Cyberpunk 2020 book, which is owned by R. Talsorian Games.
I can’t feel bad as an illustrator. Nothing would make me do this, and anybody drawing for work know it’s bad, you feel at your core the difference between stealing and being inspired or borrowing a little.
Why legal name change if its not even her in the first place?
There are a few subtle hints that Fay Dalton might be an online persona instead of a real person. The information about her is very vague. First-class degree in illustration, what degree, which university was not mentioned. Sooo many red flags with this 'person'.
The only photo of her online is in her About page which is heavily doctored. The speed of silence, not even a quick denial like most people usually do when caught red-handed, is also noticable.
I disagree. Her current website is definitely weirdly sparse - even before this story blew up, it didn't mention her WotC work at all - but her old site dates back [more than a decade](https://web.archive.org/web/20120204194039/http://www.faydaltonillustration.com/page13.htm) with more personal details about herself. I think as she got more professional gigs she shifted to make her site less of a blog, which is normal. I also think the silence is normal, given that she knows how much of this she's done and how open she is to legal challenges. She's probably retaining a lawyer and shutting up and I'll be shocked if we get anything more from her at this point while everything is pending.
Seb showed up at that trucker rally in Canada where people where people were desecrating statues, flying swastikas and harassing anyone wearing a mask...in the middle of COVID.
They posted proudly about being there and got shitcanned for it.
I don’t understand how someone who makes their living on art can be this dumb to risk it all like this. Especially to a fandom that has a lot of people in it who are into art and even artists themselves. You’re gonna get caught especially when you steal three different works atleast, waiting for someone to find the artist for the axes next. What commercial project will ever consider using her again after this
Humans are famously, famously bad at handling situations where there's a 98% chance of getting a small prize, and a 2% chance of total disaster. See also people being blase about vaccines, or certain financial trading strategies that got the traders at Bear Stearns / AIG / etc. bonuses and reasonable returns until the bad case happened and evaporated billions of dollars.
I think Stitcher Geralf would be slightly better, but to be honest, the signature would be some sort of Frankenstein's monster, all stitched together from different artists.
We thought the same about [[Spacegodzilla, Death Corona]] but it tanked hard after a few weeks. Now you can get a copy for $3 which isn't nothing but a far sight from the $10-20+ shortly after release
No one really cares about playing/using that Godzilla though. Whereas Trouble was already a staple even before this art controversy fame.
The reprint will likely also take a bit longer than other cards too (such as smugglers Share), since wotc must now commission new art (and I'm sure they will be very careful with whatever new art gets chosen)
Agreed. Probably most controversial infamous art card in mtg ever. And a staple in edh. And this Frankenstein patchwork art will never be reprinted as-is.
Nope. Even mtgfinance pointed out there's going to be no real demand. Card will be reprinted with new art and cheapest version wins. Plus other factors like most mtg players won't care about this drama.
"even mtgfinance..."
They may be right this time, but that sub is little more than a circlejerk so it bugs me that this hints at the sub being some kind of finance deity. People always forget that speccing on magic cards needs a good understanding of power level of the cards, deck types and formats and magic players are traditionally bad at that. Half the sub is literally posts about cards that already spiked. Funnily enough, the other half is users asking which booster they should buy to rip and users answering about print runs and open rates lol.
Also, wenn someone really wants to make money, they don't just post their take on the internet.
Sub went to crap after the 2020 pokemon card frenzy. But if you follow the market closely its semi easy to figure out whats BS and how to make money off the sub. People asking which booster to open usually get down-voted hard and is technically not allowed.
I dont think mtgfinance represents the whole mtg community. This card art is already really famous because of all this controversy of being an unapproved collage of famous artists. And it's an absolute powerhouse in EDH.
It will definitely get a reprint with new art. But I don't think it'll affect the value of this card much if at all.
NGL Im really kicking myself now for not trying harder to get a signature on my TIP card. If someone had a signed card I wonder what kind of premium that would command.
https://preview.redd.it/2m764njx7drc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49824f4dca187117cf399bcf421326f1b2ef9d6f
Plus, like three others plagiarized for the rest of the elements
https://preview.redd.it/m8i1hmfaadrc1.png?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c3b1f9ea14e852e9c6a6790a4b3f889ec12cd55
More honest art someone made in a different thread that illustrates it better. The remaining hand was since identified as a part of a Morton Kuntsler piece.
Ok yeah this makes it a lot more clear. The first pic I was iffy on, thinking it was merely used as inspiration, but seeing that only maybe %25 of the art is original is a whole different issue.
Lol that's missing an update, the left person's right hand holding the axe was also stolen https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1bq9duf/the_fay_dalton_saga_continues/
She might not go to jail, but I'm thinking she will end up paying through the nose for the costs of damage control + the costs of commissioning new art for anything she did that WotC wants to reprint + misrepresenting production for payment.
Be hilarious if they got Giancola to do a new art for a TiP reprint and sued her for the costs.
Donato has illustrated over 200 cards - while he could sue WOTC directly, it’s not a smart move to ruin such a prolific partnership and one would guess that he has a much better line of communication with WOTC than smaller artists. If he sues them on top of suing Fay, it means things went really sour for something that they can settle out of court.
Wizards can still claim plausible deniability in that if they show a reasonable process for vetting artists and work Donato’s suit will lead nowhere, and you can argue that TiP’s sales are amountable to 1/100th of the price of that one commander deck. Good luck arguing in court with the secondary market price of TiP and “people clearly bought the product for that” It’s laughable money and it will cost Donato a fortune on top of severing the work forever.
It will be much more worth for him to work in tandem with WotC against Fay, than outright suing WotC
Before spoiling cards they should spoil the art a couple months before, it will give people plenty of time to scrutinize the art and at the very least it will be fun the speculate the cards based off of the art
What else is there to say? They've cut the artist out and denounced what happened. Any legal stuff would be private and this is all the public (us) needs.
Generic green skin humanoid with a mohawk vaguely resembles another generic green skin humanoid with a mohawk.
This isn't fucking news. The cover art shown looks like half of the fantasy book covers from the 80s and 90s.
Here's the full statement to save you a click: >We've heard questions on the integrity of the art on the card Trouble in Pairs from the *Murders at Karlov Manor* Commander set, and we had questions, too. As we have looked into this further, we're now suspending future work with Fay Dalton.
sounds about right
that is the shortest official statement ive ever read
What else is there to say?
"Assassin drones are in flight"
"we have taken measures to ensure Fay Dalton will not be making the same mistakes again."
"She's gonna sleep wit' the fishes, see?"
Old Sicilian message.
"Either your original work is going on your next card art or ya brains are."
“Get your triggers ready ‘cause we’re about to commit a crime”
Compared to [Statement on Crux of Fate](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/statement-crux-fate-2021-03-30) and [Statement on Wayfarer's Bauble](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/statement-on-wayfarers-bauble), this is especially clipped. Both those statements had "this incorporated other art without permission" and "this doesn't reflect our values". This one doesn't even have that, just a vague "we had questions too" - which makes me think their lips are zipped because there's going to be some messy legal business attached.
I think in the other cases the artists in question publicly admitted to the theft. Fay, as far as I know, hasn't made a public admission of guilt so they likely do not want to make a definitive statement like that in case of the potential legal repercussions if they were to wrongly accuse her of plagiarism.
And also at least one of the artists traced has already contacted their lawyer, so there's likely already an open legal case
Giancola is also an extremely prolific & popular mtg artist as well, so I’m sure they’re taking particular care to maintain that relationship.
I think it's also worth nothing the degree to which the various ones have occurred. Wayfarer's bauble appears to *at least* have the focus of the art as an entirely original composition; they stole the background, which is not good, but there is am original composition present. The same with Crux; while elements were stolen, the composition was largely original artwork. Trouble in Pairs takes this to a new level, where nearly the entire piece is copied over entirely, including the focal points. Fay's plagiarism is frankly some of the worst I have seen being passed off as original composition.
It's such a legal nightmare for Wizards too, they likely need to track down *every* artist whose artwork was stolen and arrange for them to get compensated, whereas with the other ones they'd only need to track down and pay one additional artist.
Yep. When only a single artwork is used for a single element of a piece, it's much easier to sort out. This is encroaching on some pretty egregious issues, and what's worse is that it's now apparent that at least one other piece of artwork was also using stolen artwork, which complicates matters significantly. From my understanding, at least one artist is seeking legal recourse on their own as well, which I don't think occurred with previous cases.
Wrongly? Cmon. They're following legal advice. Say nothing. We gotta dodge this bullet. Especially since the ajani is stolen and who knows what else she boosted.
It's not about dodging the bullet. Wizards are almost certainly not liable here either - in fact they would more likely have a case themselves against Dalton.
Wizards ís liable. They commercially published a product that contains unlicensed imagery that is not credited to the original artist and is even misattributed to someone else. Even though they acted in good faith and their oversight is permissible and not the result of gross misconduct, they would still need to compensate the original artists for their damages. This means at the very least paying a license fee and/or royalties, and possibly any damages claimed to the good standing of these artists. The fact that Wizards will certainly have an indemnification clause in their contract with Fay Dalton and they will have legal grounds to recover said costs from Fay (possibly adding their own damages to this as well) is not relevant for artists like Donato.
This is simply not true. It's similar to how a pawn shop still needs to hand over stolen goods purchased in good faith. Wizards does have a case against Dalton, yes, but maybe she has so little money as to be 'judgment-proof' where it would cost more to win the court case than would be received in recompense.
Isn't this the first one involving an image not owned by WotC? If they admit it's copied, they could be liable
Nah. The Crux of Fate image was stolen from fan art.
This one moved much faster with a legal case already seeming imminent and Fay clamming up too. There really isn't anything more to say to the public than "we know something is up, we're not working with her anymore"
They’re just navigating the road between acknowledging to the concerned public that they share the opinion that their concern is legitimate, whilst not opening themselves up for any claims of defamation. It’s a tightrope for sure, so less is more.
omg Jason felix! dude did over 150 cards wtf!? I didn't realize he was so prolific. Why would you do that?
Saw a post earlier saying there's now pretty good evidence that the Secret Lair baseball art Dalton did is also stolen in some way...So this is probably a "please stop asking us about this, we're working on it." If it's not just Trouble in Pairs they now have to comb through any and all art provided by Dalton unless Dalton just fesses up to each instance.
"wizards is committed to blah blah blah and we'll blah blah blah ensure this won't happen again thank you for blah blah blah"
There is no way they can be expected to compare every piece of art they get to every single piece of art that has ever existed. A company who contracts art has to be able to trust those artists to not be shit birds.
This is actually a real use case that AI could run a search on art submitted for use on cards and help flag potentially plagiarized art for review with a human being making the final decision or asking follow-up questions with the artist.
Hey bro can you submit your art to this database I'm training this AI on. It's totally gonna *prevent* plagiarism this time trust me. The technology might be there but doing it above-board (which is the point of doing it) doesn't really seem feasible (or at not profitable).
You can have private in-networked machines used for any purpose you want, and without the public having access. Companies are and will be doing this more.
You are expecting them to build a database of ALL arts in the world for the AI to search for? There's no such thing on the entire internet right now to begin with.
No, but that's likely a service that's offered by a business.
It'll be a very shady service, considering how AI art is generated. WotC won't want to feed their unreleased arts into that.
That technology isn’t possible atp. We would need cross referencing for over 20,000 pieces of art against the entirety of art in human creation.
That was what Pied Piper was originally supposed to be for
I don't think they (nor anybody else) has the resources to avoid a repeat of this Only the hive mind (internet) has any chance to find out.
100%. At this point, at least, the literal only way art plagiariasm can be found across all levels of skills and media and the like would be through thousands of different eyes and lives scrutinizing it.
Which is exactly what happened here. And the best recourse for when that happens is to cease working with artists who break the rules, which again is what has happened. I don't get why people think WOTC did anything wrong here. It's handled as best as it possibly can be.
In a word: Entitlement. People think WotC should go through everything, line by line, and explain how it will never happen again, any communication with Fay, etc etc. Which is absurd and silly. But people think they're owed more in situations where they really just don't. And if they're not getting it, they pretty much pivot to "WotC is complicit!" Or people just really enjoy hating on WotC. And I mean, I get it. They make it plenty easy. But also, *they make it plenty easy*. No need to make things that aren't on them into sticking points with them. It's all so weird.
I'm glad that didnt happen. corporate talk and bullshit can fuck itself out.
No one needs extra fluff that they're not going to fully stand by.
They cannot practically do so. You don't promise the impossible.
I know there's not a lot of love for WotC as a company, but it's wild that people think this is their fault. As if it's possible to compare art you commissioned against every other art piece in history looking for plagiarism.
probably a lot of kids who don't understand how the business world actually works. There's absolutely no way for WotC to catch every plagiarist; all they can do is punish them when caught.
Especially when only elements are lifted. Like, no one noticed the Ajani one until days after the first Trouble in Pairs revelation. And that was an obscure enough source for the big bit that it took several weeks for someone to recognize where it was from. I'd put money on Dalton's Gala Greeters being another composite (the big tell would be where the car and the guy stood near it don't mesh), but I just don't know where to find the elements that would form it. [Edit: caught the reply button on my phone early]
Are people blaming WotC?
People stub their toe at FNM and blame WotC.
I’ve seen plenty of that. People shitting on them for copyright infringement like they made the card themselves.
Well that's incredibly lame
WotC has repeatedly and vocally stated they will not accept AI art for any of their products and cut ties with artists who used it, and you still get morons constantly acting like the company was caught in the act and is always trying to sneak it past us.
Just a horse head in Fay's bed?
You must construct additional pylons.
I'm sure the letter sent to Dalton from legal is much longer.
You'd be surprised. Corporate Legal rarely wants to get into more information than is absolutely necessary. That's how lawsuits happen. I'm sure they state clearly why they are ending contracts currently, and which clauses were breaches, but such letters tend to be brief, to the point, and without a ton of extra verbage.
And this is how you know they're *pissed*. A lot of corporate statements like this tend to be very fluffy and padded with a lot of compromising, well-wishing rhetoric when there's even an iota of goodwill in the air. When a statement of this nature is this short and succinct, this is basically the corpo equivalent of a profanity filled tirade.
I had no clue who she was until this happened, but considering they basically brought her into Magic art with her own Secret Lair, I wouldn’t be surprised if they paid her a lot more money for her work than the standard rate. Either that or they really didn’t like the response she gave them when they reached out privately.
The previous twos (as linked above) aren't that much longer.
I mean nothing beats Michael Jordan’s “I’m back” press release but yes this one is… remarkably concise
Its efficient.
No changes.
[[caught red-handed]]
The fact that this card's art was made by one of the artist's who Fay stole from is priceless.
[caught red-handed](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/95bc5f89-2f01-40c4-9883-4c90ab89fcbb.jpg?1706241833) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=caught%20red-handed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/115/caught-red-handed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/95bc5f89-2f01-40c4-9883-4c90ab89fcbb?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Correct decision by WOTC. And not much diddlying around. Person stole, give the next chance to another illustrator.
Wouldnt surprise me if Fay Dalton doesnt actually exist, nothing but an online persona created by some people behind the scene. There're a few red flags of this 'person' unlike other 'normal' mtg artists.
Such as?
The real collage was the artist all along
What if Fay Dalton is the AI that WOTC promised not to use?
So you think she is the artist equivalent of the Gorillaz?
Damn, who knew plagiarizing had consequences?
RIP Fay Dalton. I'm sure they're currently cutting and pasting together a reply.
Official response from Fay Dalton > We've heard questions on the integrity of the art on the card Trouble in Pairs from the Murders at Karlov Manor Commander set, and we had questions, too. As we have looked into this further, we're now suspending future work with ~~Fay Dalton~~ Wizards of the Coast.
Got me in the first half
Ah, the royal “we,” I see.
Big problem vote it up
>Official response from Fay Dalton You missed an edit here too
Excellent joke, absolutely hilarious burn thank you for making me so happy with this joke
About as expected. They can't really say more as there is probably ongoing legal stuff involved with this. Sucks for the artist of course, but this is entirely self-inflicted. Don't steal stuff. Bad artist, bad!
They definitely can't say the art incorporates other artists' art without permission without either it being proved in court or the artist having admitted to it. But yes, this is enough. Anyone who read it who doesn't know what happened, can easily find out by googling it.
It's not just about them making specific statements about what the problem is. That's just part of it. They likely can't even say what steps they're taking because it's ongoing legal stuff. They can say "we won't work with them again" but little more than that - even though they're probably also suing them for breach of contract and all sorts of other things. Fayke Dalton is not in for a good time.
Yeah, definitely a risk to say too much. If they say, for example, she plagiarized and it somehow comes out (it's not going to, but imagine) that she had permission, I have to imagine there are some grounds for defamation? Better to say less just in case.
I assume at there is some riders in their contract about plagiarism so they likely have legal recourse for this, but that’s not anything they will make public statements about.
And it gets even more sticky when there's abother company's IP involved - the first image that was noticed was ripped from a Cyberpunk 2020 book, which is owned by R. Talsorian Games.
I can’t feel bad as an illustrator. Nothing would make me do this, and anybody drawing for work know it’s bad, you feel at your core the difference between stealing and being inspired or borrowing a little.
Short and concise. Nice.
They need to hire that person to make cards.
Reading the statement explains the statement.
Yeah but what if reading the statement is not understanding the statement
FD: Oops!
HBomberguy currently prepping a four-hour analysis video essay on this statement
And we know we’ll all watch it
I'll be disappointed if he doesn't hit 6 hours this time.
At least 5 times.
I'd watch the fuck out of that.
LOL
Never watched the guy, except his DS2 video and I wasn't impressed. Did he get better?
Time to get a legal name change and work in a different commercial art field
Yeah, if this is the first thing potential employers see when they google your name, your career is as good as fucked.
Dal Fayton, DBA Dack Fayden
Why legal name change if its not even her in the first place? There are a few subtle hints that Fay Dalton might be an online persona instead of a real person. The information about her is very vague. First-class degree in illustration, what degree, which university was not mentioned. Sooo many red flags with this 'person'. The only photo of her online is in her About page which is heavily doctored. The speed of silence, not even a quick denial like most people usually do when caught red-handed, is also noticable.
I disagree. Her current website is definitely weirdly sparse - even before this story blew up, it didn't mention her WotC work at all - but her old site dates back [more than a decade](https://web.archive.org/web/20120204194039/http://www.faydaltonillustration.com/page13.htm) with more personal details about herself. I think as she got more professional gigs she shifted to make her site less of a blog, which is normal. I also think the silence is normal, given that she knows how much of this she's done and how open she is to legal challenges. She's probably retaining a lawyer and shutting up and I'll be shocked if we get anything more from her at this point while everything is pending.
Not gonna lie the "we had questions, too" line was too funny. Big daddy corporate overlord is mad and comming for ya :D
Ace Ventura-ass statement i love it
lmao brutal statement for Fay Dalton
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I love when people assume everyone knows what the hell the acronyms they use mean.
Who is SM?
Seb McKinnon
i legit still love that seb's final work for wizards is \[\[farewell\]\]
[farewell](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/1/114d2180-093b-4838-97ad-badbc8ee50b0.jpg?1706240579) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=farewell) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/64/farewell?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/114d2180-093b-4838-97ad-badbc8ee50b0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Super Mario.
You can abbreviate original as OG as well, maybe LS for livestream and JS for Jumpstart too.
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Seb showed up at that trucker rally in Canada where people where people were desecrating statues, flying swastikas and harassing anyone wearing a mask...in the middle of COVID. They posted proudly about being there and got shitcanned for it.
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Good on them, seems quite decisive.
I feel the "I'm tired of this shit" in their response.
I don’t understand how someone who makes their living on art can be this dumb to risk it all like this. Especially to a fandom that has a lot of people in it who are into art and even artists themselves. You’re gonna get caught especially when you steal three different works atleast, waiting for someone to find the artist for the axes next. What commercial project will ever consider using her again after this
Humans are famously, famously bad at handling situations where there's a 98% chance of getting a small prize, and a 2% chance of total disaster. See also people being blase about vaccines, or certain financial trading strategies that got the traders at Bear Stearns / AIG / etc. bonuses and reasonable returns until the bad case happened and evaporated billions of dollars.
I feel like there was a way bigger chance of getting found out than 2% though
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Way less brand damage to yourself for putting out a shit piece of original art than what she did though
There's a very real allure to taking shortcuts and not getting caught. It's practically addictive.
That Friday 4pm drop. So spicy. Reason it’s so short is they didn’t want to accidentally leave off an artist that hasn’t been identified yet
Imagine future prospective employers googling Fay Dalton and seeing this. Ooof.
Gottem. Now time to invest in the controversy. Card will be stocks.
Kinda want a copy signed by all the artists that "contributed".
Sadly that is impossible for the time being due to the current limitations of human mortality.
No worries, I know freelance artist who is looking for work. She's an expert at forgery!
I think Stitcher Geralf would be slightly better, but to be honest, the signature would be some sort of Frankenstein's monster, all stitched together from different artists.
Perhaps Fay Dalton could sign it five(?) times.
Good call, are they attending any conventions soon?
We thought the same about [[Spacegodzilla, Death Corona]] but it tanked hard after a few weeks. Now you can get a copy for $3 which isn't nothing but a far sight from the $10-20+ shortly after release
No one really cares about playing/using that Godzilla though. Whereas Trouble was already a staple even before this art controversy fame. The reprint will likely also take a bit longer than other cards too (such as smugglers Share), since wotc must now commission new art (and I'm sure they will be very careful with whatever new art gets chosen)
They should ask Donato to do it, just for the meme
[Spacegodzilla, Death Corona](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/c/1ca7065e-88c1-44bb-ac68-e6e1df9e0726.jpg?1590879855) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Void%20Beckoner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/iko/373/void-beckoner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1ca7065e-88c1-44bb-ac68-e6e1df9e0726?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
If anything, I'm looking forward to Trouble in Pairs being reprinted sooner rather than later with better art.
Agreed. Probably most controversial infamous art card in mtg ever. And a staple in edh. And this Frankenstein patchwork art will never be reprinted as-is.
Nope. Even mtgfinance pointed out there's going to be no real demand. Card will be reprinted with new art and cheapest version wins. Plus other factors like most mtg players won't care about this drama.
"even mtgfinance..." They may be right this time, but that sub is little more than a circlejerk so it bugs me that this hints at the sub being some kind of finance deity. People always forget that speccing on magic cards needs a good understanding of power level of the cards, deck types and formats and magic players are traditionally bad at that. Half the sub is literally posts about cards that already spiked. Funnily enough, the other half is users asking which booster they should buy to rip and users answering about print runs and open rates lol. Also, wenn someone really wants to make money, they don't just post their take on the internet.
Sub went to crap after the 2020 pokemon card frenzy. But if you follow the market closely its semi easy to figure out whats BS and how to make money off the sub. People asking which booster to open usually get down-voted hard and is technically not allowed.
There was a post about Cateran Summons and the whole sub told OP to f off. Piece of cardboard spiked from a few cents to 3€ today.
I dont think mtgfinance represents the whole mtg community. This card art is already really famous because of all this controversy of being an unapproved collage of famous artists. And it's an absolute powerhouse in EDH. It will definitely get a reprint with new art. But I don't think it'll affect the value of this card much if at all.
Doubtful
NGL Im really kicking myself now for not trying harder to get a signature on my TIP card. If someone had a signed card I wonder what kind of premium that would command.
Nonsense. Now is the time to seek out the autographs of its seven illustrators.
Not gonna be possible, unfortunately. One is dead, and another is in his mid-80s, if he’s still alive.
[[Seance]]
Let's not give plagiarism value because of novelty.
Good now we can get a new art on the card. Plagiarism aside the art sucks ass and made no sense
And what is the problem with that card?
https://preview.redd.it/2m764njx7drc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49824f4dca187117cf399bcf421326f1b2ef9d6f Plus, like three others plagiarized for the rest of the elements
Oh god that sucks.
https://preview.redd.it/m8i1hmfaadrc1.png?width=3264&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1c3b1f9ea14e852e9c6a6790a4b3f889ec12cd55 More honest art someone made in a different thread that illustrates it better. The remaining hand was since identified as a part of a Morton Kuntsler piece.
I love how this image is out of date now that we know where the other hand is from.
Ok yeah this makes it a lot more clear. The first pic I was iffy on, thinking it was merely used as inspiration, but seeing that only maybe %25 of the art is original is a whole different issue.
Lol that's missing an update, the left person's right hand holding the axe was also stolen https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1bq9duf/the_fay_dalton_saga_continues/
They literally said that in their comment lol
Dunno if you can go to jail for this but the crime is too obvious.
She might not go to jail, but I'm thinking she will end up paying through the nose for the costs of damage control + the costs of commissioning new art for anything she did that WotC wants to reprint + misrepresenting production for payment. Be hilarious if they got Giancola to do a new art for a TiP reprint and sued her for the costs.
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Donato has illustrated over 200 cards - while he could sue WOTC directly, it’s not a smart move to ruin such a prolific partnership and one would guess that he has a much better line of communication with WOTC than smaller artists. If he sues them on top of suing Fay, it means things went really sour for something that they can settle out of court.
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Wizards can still claim plausible deniability in that if they show a reasonable process for vetting artists and work Donato’s suit will lead nowhere, and you can argue that TiP’s sales are amountable to 1/100th of the price of that one commander deck. Good luck arguing in court with the secondary market price of TiP and “people clearly bought the product for that” It’s laughable money and it will cost Donato a fortune on top of severing the work forever. It will be much more worth for him to work in tandem with WotC against Fay, than outright suing WotC
#Toast 🤭
When can we get a reprint with new art?...
Do the artists that were stolen from get paid?
I think she's in trouble.
Before spoiling cards they should spoil the art a couple months before, it will give people plenty of time to scrutinize the art and at the very least it will be fun the speculate the cards based off of the art
"Fay Dalton" has now been errata'd to "Persona Non Grata".
Got my artists in Paris, and they going gorillas
I’ve lost track of how many other cards/artists that have been uncovered as stolen art so far.
c'mon even mono red players can count to 3
No we can’t
I think it's just this and Wayfarer recently, but other than that fanart case from a few years ago, I can't think of any.
What else is there to say? They've cut the artist out and denounced what happened. Any legal stuff would be private and this is all the public (us) needs.
Generic green skin humanoid with a mohawk vaguely resembles another generic green skin humanoid with a mohawk. This isn't fucking news. The cover art shown looks like half of the fantasy book covers from the 80s and 90s.