From Haunts: “Hey guys!  Well,
just came across the Jet+Rubble situation out there and I’m somewhat disgusted. 
I actually used to be good friends with one of the Brand New School dudes, when
he was living out here in LA, going to Otis (an art school) and sighing when
anything graffiti/street-related came up.  I’ll keep from naming his name, since
we have no idea who is directly to blame, but he used to be a cool guy, then he
moved out there to be a bigshot designer and doesn’t like to return emails now. 
I wanted to keep in touch, so would email him every now and again, but nothing. 
So I guess it just goes to show.  Yes, once the stuff is out there it is a kind
of “fair game”, and playing fair means knowing when to design your own damn
shit.  They are a pretty good firm, too, so for them to jump on somebody else’s
creative train is a shame.  The street should have inspired them, rather than
use it as some free clip art site.  Those cats should have known better.  They
should be embarrassed.  They probably all just went to another party full of
models the night before their Carson Daly deadline and needed something quickly. 
“Hey those eyes are cool!”  (This guy in question used to like to call another
friend of mine from these parties he’d attend.)

From href="http://www.urbanmedium.com/">Urban Medium: “I feel jet’s pain
- we have had our share of being “ganked”, most recently href="http://www.zeroboutique.com/instock/index.php?Design=chetrooper">here.


We know several of the folks over at href="http://www.brandnewschool.com/">Brand New School from back in the day
when half of them jumped ship from FUEL and started their own thing. They have
had a relationship with MTV for years…this sucks because several of the people
over there are quite talented and more than capable of coming up with original
work. Now, I think there’s two things being said here - there’s the protecting
of original “Characters” i.e. our friend Magmo (perfectly valid) and there’s the
protection of works that either pull from other copyrights (like our chetrooper)
and/or are only “complete” when added to other copyright protected
materials…such as billboards, advertisements, etc…like Jet’s “eyes”.
Protecting your 100% original characters and/or works, no problem - trying to
copyright something that utilizes other copyrights in order to make it a
“whole”...isn’t going to happen. All you can do is expose the organization for
what they did and move on to the next thing - I guarantee if that next thing is
hot, it’s going to get bit in some form or fashion.

Dave the Chimp is
100% on the mark, many and I mean MANY advertising agencies over the past few
months have been scrambling to make their campaigns more “urban” - we have been
approached by several large organizations to contribute to campaigns trageting
“kids in baggy pants” (I kid you not, that was said to us) - expect this to only
be the tip of the iceberg…it’s going to make for an interesting summer.”
/>
From Shannon Sasser: “i strongly feel that although art
is posted in the street it is still the intellectual property of its creators!
while the argument could certainly be made (and it has), that art that is posted
in public spaces belongs to the public, utilizing the work of others for
commercial/promotional use is really reprehensible. i have often wanted to bring
home street art, but have stopped myself because i felt that the intention of
the artists—that graff art is informed by its contexts, environment—should
be respected. the idea that someone would use someone else’s art in their
campaign is ugly and sad. couldn’t they have had an original thought—or at
the very least approached the artists and asked to use the work, offered
compensation? think how many supplies jet+rubble would have been able to
buy!”