Dear Jared,

I've just been informed that you're going to take legal action against me. Please feel free to do so if you wish, however any legal action you attempt will be vigorously defended.

Now, for the record, I've never seen your site before up until today!

However, in the interests of fairness, I've had a look at your site and if you'd seen my site (designoverload.co.uk) in November/December you'd know how these pixel art images came about.

In October last year I had a page requesting submissions for pixel art. I asked people visiting my site, for some ideas for some pixel art scenes. I asked if any people had some old symbols for me to practice on.

In November, I was given some people symbols, desk symbols and an office layout by a girl called Sara Cowles ( sarcowles@hotmail.com ) who assured me that they were her own and copyright free. She gave me them as a "kit" to practice with and I then constructed the office scene from it.Simple as that.I also recoloured and reused some of the people symbols in the other scenes. - ie the newspaper scene and the atack of the clones scene.

I made every effort to ensure that I was not breaching anyone's copyright

The page asking for the pixel art help was removed at the end of December as I had enough to go on. However, at the time, I stated clearly that I was no pixel artist but willing to give it a go.

I see strong similarities in the office scene but this was not intentional, but what really angers me is the reference on your site and also naming me in your CV section. You should get your facts right or find out more information before threatening legal action. But above all, you should have emailed me about it - I'm not unreasonable and certainly not our to rip anyone off! Your comments are inflammatory.

Now, I will take these down and you can write to the girl named above if it bothers you this much, but please make sure that you take the derogitory comments about me from your site. I'll play fair if you do! I would also apprecite acknowledgement on your site.

Finally, the lorries, search engine scene and night time scene are entirely my own work and I can prove this. I work closely with some games companies in Dundee, such as Visual Sciences and Indioctrimat who make games for the Playstation. I was given the briefs from them and rough ideas to which I created theses pieces.These were derived from sketches from artists within these companies.

Stuart Low
Design Overload

Stuart sent this email to Sara...

>Hello Sara,
>
>I was informed yesterday that there is a note on this site
>http://www.pixeldeviant.com/journal.shtml stating that legal action to come
>against me.
>
>Last year you gave me some pixel based symbols which you assured me
>were ok
>to use. Now this other site is claiming presumably that I am ripping them
>off. I have never knowingly used other people's work without their consent
>and I am particularly angry about the comments on this website.
>
>Can you please sort this out one way or another and let me know the
>outcome.
>
>Regards
>
>Stuart Low
>Design Overload

Then I got this one this morning from Sara herself:

Dear Jaz,

I am writing to apologise for a genuine mistake I made with regards to your
pixel art and the www.designoverload.co.uk website.

I've also included an earlier reply to him.

First of all, please accept my apology. I saw your image a while back and
tried to recreate it for fun. I reused some of your symbols for the sake of
placement but I never actually got round to finishing it. However, I must be
fair and say that there are dozens of similar office scenes and yours is
extremely similar in style.

Anyway, sometime last year on the design oveload web site there was a call
for stuff for a new pixel art gallery so I submitted some symbols I had
lying around. I told him it was ok to use them so he did and gave me credit
for it on his site. When I submitted the symbols I mistakenly included the
people, chair and coke can figures. I meant to take them out so please
accept my apology. It was a genuine mistake. The rest of the symbols aren't
yours and I can back it up.

With regards to your image, I was using this as a source of inspiration and
I never intended anything to be distributed. I hope if anything you are
flattered that I thought your image was cool.

So to cut a long story short, I am sorry for any problems this has caused
and Stuart Low has informed me that he is going to remove these images once
he knows what the story is.

Sara Cowles

Mail from Sara to Stuart...

Hi Stuart,

I'm very sorry if this has caused you a problem. I really never meant this
to happen. Please let me explain.

I remember seeing this office scene a while ago and I borrowed some ideas
from it. When I gave you the symbols in the PSD file I included some symbols
I "borrowed" in a recreation of this image and forgot to delete them when I
sent you the symbols. This was my fault and I'm very sorry for this.

I sent you this kit so that you could create your own scene and you've done
a good job for a first attempt.

Anyway, the table, window, glass table, sofa symbols were all created by
myself. If you look closely at them you will see differences - angles being
the most obvious, HOWEVER, these symbols are available online and there are
a number of tutorials on how to create them. If this guy is claiming
copyright over these then he can think again! HUNDREDS of pixel artists have
created these and all in a very similar style.

The tree symbol is also from a tutorial piece, but I can't remember
where.(Sorry).

The mac and PC symbols are freely available as a download from the
iconfactory so he can't claim anything on these!

The people symbols, chair symbols and coke can are not mine. I think I
mistakenly included them in the PSD file I sent you. This was a real mistake
and completely my fault. I will let this guy know.

I've compared the two images side by side and if you take out the people,
chairs and coke can then there's nothing he can say about your image.

Obviously you did the trucks! Very cool.

Regards

Sara

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