http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Lucky-Brand-Jea ... dZViewItem


Uhm, that's the picture from Mineko Iwasaki's book. . . I really hate plagerizing. I see it so often with pictures of Geisha just getting used. I've seen those cross stitch kits and several of them have used Fujika's images.. . .

So tastefully done *sarcasm*. Poor lady ain't dead!

LOL, well Iwasaki is dead on that shirt anyhow.

Did she actually ask Mineko for rights to use that picture? I sent her a message asking her and she has not responded. But I doubt it because Mineko kind of likes to sell her story a bit and I would doubt she would give permission for someone to use her picture to make a T Shirt design to sell on Ebay...

Yikes, I hope this doesn't get ugly. Some people just aren't very picture rights savvy (I mean, c'mon look at all the avatars here ripped from flickR :S ), me included. It's a cute shirt, but Mineko Iwasaki is the wrong geiko to mess with lol.

The thing is, guys, the person selling is just the merchant. She didn't make the product. I believe the brand is, "Lucky Brand," which is a big company. I'm just curious if anyone has connections enough to let our favorite shrew of a Geisha know that some big company is using her image without her permission. :/

YES! Finally someone agrees with me that Mineko is a shrew of a geisha.

Oh, Mineko is absolutely a shrew, but I mean that in the most loving and endearing way meant. She's like the Japanese version of Shakespear's Katerina.

I saw in New Yorker shirt with Fukuya and biiiig text: Japanese Maiko. There are many clothes with geisha's and maiko. and why Mineko is a shrew? i think she is legendary geisha.

lol! I do quite think that Mineko is a shrew, but at least she sticks to her guns and asserts herself. There's too much stigma that Japanese women are submissive, especially these girly-girl geisha lol. You tell 'em Mineko!

But yes, I agree with DameDiabolique that Mineko likes to sell her story, which I can't quite agree with but it IS her life and her pictures. I'd flip if someone was plastering my face all over clothes lol. It's not even a great pic of Mineko either, in my opinion.

Tsuruko: maybe if someone can contact a publisher of her book, word will get back to her?

Honestly, my thought is that LuckyBrand probably paid her for the picture. They certainly have the money to do it. Most major companies won't steal images from other famous people. They'll step on the little guy sure, but that's because he can't fight back. I doubt they'd be foolish enough to cross a geiko - those women have CONNECTIONS. I don't really know anything about Mineko-sama, but if she is as shrewd a businesswoman as I infer from this thread, then she would most likely agree to sell her image (at least just that particular one) to LB as it contributes to distributing her image. Just a thought.

I was about to say that Mineko Iwasaki has a website and, I think, an email could be left there, but it doesn't seem to be working.

http://mineko.net/

I'm sure I visited it a few days ago, though. Might be just a temporary technical issue...

This kind of thing has already happened a few times to Mineko, in her book it says she went into a shop on her day off in either Kyoto or Tokyo i think, and the carrier bags (i think, i cant remember the full story) had a picture of her on them, and nobody had asked her. It was her all over them.

Hmm...

Aw shoot, I just remembered something. You guys are probably right, they didn't ask for permission, but that's because they don't have to. In the US, a person's likeness can't be copyrighted/isn't protected. I imagine that especially applies to foreign persons, and in Japan itself, copyright is almost non-existant as it is. Furthermore, in the case of photographs, the copyright stays with the person who took the picture, not the subject of the picture.

My bad, I should have remembered that.