“Every time I had the opportunity to go to the store, [items] “Down the line, another 10 came out of nowhere,” Jödicke says. “I almost wanted to give up on my art because I felt so broken that people were just taking my work and making a profit off of it, and I didn’t see anything from it.”
Wide popularity Where light meets darkness only compounded that feeling, making it unclear where Jödicke should begin. “Where infringing uses are widespread, it may not be feasible to pursue every single infringement,” Eziefula says. “Particularly if it’s overseas, outside the artist’s home jurisdiction, nor cost-effective where the damage is minimal.”
Too often, however, the damage is significant—both in draining revenue away from artists and in diluting their brand, making them a harder sell to potential customers. People often feel entitled to the art they find online, and artists experience hostility when they try to claim ownership. But that entitlement is exactly what broke the dam for Jödicke and paved the way for his fight.
In 2020, Jödicke got lucky when Aaron Carter — pop singer and brother of Backstreet Boys’ Nick — used one of the artist’s other works titled Brotherhoodto promote his clothing line on Twitter (now X). The image, which has the same vibe as Jödicke’s galactic wolf, features two lions butting heads, one white and one black, their manes forming a heart shape. Frustrated, Jödicke called Carter out on Twitter. Demands for credit or removal are often met with stony silence. On this occasion, Jödicke received a response:
“you should have taken it as a compliment that my fan sent it to me,” Carter wrote alongside a repost of Jödicke’s tweet, according to Court docket from August 2020“Oh, here we go again, the answer is: No, this image has been made public and I am [sic] using it to promote my clothing line… I guess I’ll see you in petite claims court, FUCK.”
For once, thanks to Carter’s retort, Jödicke had options. The public nature of the exchange had IP lawyers lining up to represent him, and after years of watching others cash in on his art, Jödicke called Carter to account for his threat.
After a year of legal proceedings in the U.S. District Court in Central California, Jödicke says he settled for a low-five-figure settlement for violating his copyright. It was a moment of revelation. “I had never really experienced any kind of justice,” Jödicke says. “It really, really motivated me to seek further legal advice and see if there was anything I could do against art theft.” (Carter died in 2022.)
This was a single infringement with an immediately identifiable infringer. Preventing the widespread sale of his work on various merchandise would have been a much more tough task. His victory over Carter, however, brought him to the attention of British Edwin James IPThe company approached Jödicke to offer its resources, specifically its expertise in stopping counterfeiters from domains where copyright law is less stringent, such as China.