It was brought to my attention, that a musician who goes by the name of Fulcrum, uses one of my Star-Wars tribute paintings as album cover:

here is the original version:

It is really a weird situation because we have AI-tools and this guy could have a much better cover than this, but he choses to do this instead.

So what do I think of this?

First thing was, Oh that is fun because usually when my work is used even without credit, some people find the work and buy directly from me, so that is good. 

The next thing is; why did he use a Star Wars themed piece, does he have a Dark-Side themed album about the empire and a fallen AT-AT?

I mean this would all make sense - even if we forget for a minute that Lucasfilm/Disney owns the rights to any Star Wars vehicle. 

But why didn't he ask?

In this article I covered the case why Chinese dropshippers sold the AT-AT en masse years ago, simply because fans downloaded the art as wallpaper from deviantArt and uploaded them on Wallpaper sites under a CC license since they thought it was public domain because of the Bierstadt painting on which it is based.

The truth is, because of the mashup with a third-party IP, it becomes a legal grey area. 

I can't really do anything about it because I neither own the rights to an AT-AT nor the Albert Bierstadt painting. I re-painted the piece several times for a better quality output, but the legal facts do not change. And I only sell my own work because I have long enough observed others selling my work without consent and without consequences.

So that is the basic gist of things around this topic.

Basically everyone promoting my mashup work, with or without attribution is doing me a favor. Its just my take on something that exists already.

The only thing I can do is to set up an article about that matter, so that interested parties find this article and learn that they can get a print and support my work by getting a signed version here on my Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/de/listing/821791839/kunstdruck-atat-walker...

Or on Canvas in my Webshop (Germany and EU only): https://www.fantasio.shop/collections/1-panel-canvas/products/3-legged-walker-among-the-sierra-nevada-xxl-canvas-print-3

For the US, there is a limited Edition Canvas available from iCanvas.com over here:  https://www.icanvas.com/canvas-print/at-among-the-sierra-nevada-arf4#1PC6-40x26

Thanks for your consideration to support a living artist ♡