This past week, the video game Monster Prom had its promotional art reused without permission by the band Papa Roach for a tour poster.
In case you forgot who Papa Roach are, which is understandable, they had this hit song in the year 2000:
Right now, developers of the game Monster Prom say that they saw art that they’re selling as a poster for their game on a Papa Roach tour poster. The original poster was drawn by Ástor Alexander, who also created art that was used in the game itself.
Shout out to ma’ bois @paparoach @AAofficial and @SSBallroom who apparently ”misused” some @monsterprom artwork for their show poster in Dallas, TX! ????
Good job friendos! ???? pic.twitter.com/6PlSZnpyqB
— Vlad Calu (@vladwes) July 29, 2019
Kotaku reached out to Papa Roach’s management and agent about this poster and has not yet heard a response.
Although this appears to be a pretty egregious instance of art theft, Julián Quijano, creative director at Monster Prom’s development studio Beautiful Glitch, doesn’t think that there’s much to be done.
“I used to work in nightclubs for a couple years, and clubs and venues always do the same: their graphic designers have to do some poster designs per week for each party, concert, whatever. What ends up happening is they just Google some random cool images to alter a bit and add the info,” Quijano said. “So this is probably that: a venue that improvised a poster and their graphic designer found our poster to do so.”
“The whole thing just gave us some good laughs, silly puns and a funny story to tell,” Quijano continued. “Like… damn… 10 years ago I was dancing to Papa Roach music on a nightclub, completely unable of even imagining in the future they would be using (in a very nasty not nice way) art from a game I would create.”
Quijano also noted that art theft is incredibly common across multiple artistic disciplines, and that ensuring artists on the team got paid and got proper credit was a priority from the beginning. He noted that he and his team made an effort to hire Ástor to make original art for Monster Prom because they were fans and also because the team wanted to make sure Ástor got paid fairly.
“When I got the resources to collaborate with artists, I took the first opportunity I had to commission him, so I got to see his beautiful art portrayed in our game while also doing right by the artist,” Quijano said.
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