[Pann] San Francisco based artist raises suspicions about IU's 'Chatshire' album cover being plagiarized

Pann: IU 'Chatshire' album image plagiarism suspicions

"My name is Jessica Hyejun Lee and I'm currently an illustrator residing in San Francisco. In October, I started receiving a lot of contacts from people telling me that the album jacket design for IU's new album 'Chatshire' was similar to my work and asking what had happened.

After looking into it, I found that IU's album illustrator was someone who had contacted me previously about selling my work at an exhibit in Korea. After getting back in contact with them, they told me, 'At the early stages of the project, we referenced your work for its color schemes and grotesque themes', and that they had 'used the overall tone and manner of the work'. My friends and I agree in that they basically used the theme, colors, tone and manner of my work with little changes here and there in the album design.

As IU is an artist who composes and writes her own music, I'm sure she understands that I, as a fellow artist, want to protect my originality and creativity. This work was something that took me a year to create for my master's graduation project, and I ask that you share your honest thoughts and opinions on it."

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1. [+263, -34] Hul, IU's fans are going crazy with the shields. Even her illustrator admitted that she used the artist as a reference, if that isn't plagiarism, then what is? They basically took her graduation project without permission and used it as an album cover, of course the artist is pissed. No one would be mad if they had bought her work and used it fairly. And how does IU not have responsibility in this? Isn't she the head producer of the album? It's not like the album just fell out of the sky, there is obviously a creative process behind it. She has tons of other things to clarify like Britney's voice being used. She needs to stop hiding behind her agency, how can she still call herself the head producer?

2. [+213, -14] What needs to be the focus here is that the artist and IU's illustrator had previous contact ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ doesn't that give you goosebumps? It wasn't only until after the original artist contacted them to ask what was going on that they admitted, "Yeah~ so we did reference your work a bit~";; This happened with Britney too, why are they using work without permission? They can call it a "reference" all they want, it doesn't change the fact that they used another person's idea without permission. If people are going to argue that IU has no responsibility in any of this because she didn't illustrate the album or produce the song with Britney in it, then why did she media play about being the head producer for this album? Neither her or her fans have any consistency in their words.

3. [+126, -10] From the perspective of an artist who studied art abroad in France and is currently working at a French gallery, this is certainly aggravating. Artists take years drawing the same drawing over and over to develop their own style and color. To the people arguing that you can't call it plagiarism just because a letter looks the same or something, you wouldn't possibly be able to say that if you knew just how many years and effort it took to develop something creative and unique to yourself. This makes me so angry. To find that the illustrator even had previous contact with the artist gives me goosebumps. I sincerely hope that an apology is issued and that all of the profits earned from this album is returned to the artist in consolation. I hope people realize that anyone can have intellectual property stolen like this. It doesn't make it okay just because your favorite singer did it.

4. [+114, -239] This honestly seems so forced, if she had such a problem with it she should be filing a lawsuit, not uploading this to Facebook

5. [+88, -8] The color scheme is similar and the way it's laid out as well, on top of the color pencil look.. there are tons of similar themes throughout. The artist is clearly the victim here, people need to wake up.

6. [+83, -2] Some of the comments here are seriously blind... there are so many similarities from colors to the overall concept. Furthermore, the illustrator even knew the artist beforehand. I seriously can't stand IU fans choosing to be deaf and blind and just screaming senselessly whenever issues like this arise. And why would a lawsuit even make sense when Loen hasn't even clarified anything regarding Britney yet.

7. [+78, -4] Ridiculous how it wasn't only until the artist contacted them that they admitted to referencing her work ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

8. [+70, -7] ??? I think they look similar... even if the writing style isn't, look at the color scheme... and the illustrator basically admitted that they used it without permission.

9. [+68, -3] IU fans should stop silently downvoting everything and try to actually refute this with logic. IU's the head producer for this album, so what exactly did she produce? Unless she's talking about just saying "Oh~ yeah, that looks good, here's my okay~" was that what she meant by head producer? ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Then I guess every idol in our country is an artist too~

10. [+43, -1] Furthermore, that was the artist's graduation project ㅋㅋㅋ If anyone's the victim here, it's the artist for having her work stolen after spending a year of hard work to create it. Why would IU be the victim? The illustrator even admitted that they used it without permission ㅋㅋ

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