File > New Income Source

It all started with Snapchat Community Geofilters. I was obsessed with creating location-specific graphic designs and uploading them for approval by Snapchat. To me, it was like a form of digital graffiti. Users all around the world could access and share my art, and that was really exciting. So I made dozens of designs for dozens of locations, and many started being approved (including the Bangkok Buddha pictured above!). I was having a great time, and I was impressing my friends with the designs I made for our high school and town. One day, however, I was searching for stickers on Redbubble and noticed someone had commandeered my design for their own profit. I immediately filed a claim, and my designs were removed soon after. But I started to think to myself… why wasn’t I receiving monetary compensation for my creative works? If this person could make money by selling stolen designs, I could surely make even more by selling my own!

Today.com

After the copyright infringement I noticed on Redbubble, I decided to do some searching to see if others were doing similar things. After searching “NYU Geofilter” on Google, it was clear that numerous media outlets were using my design without credit on their articles. Today.com, for example, used my image as the feature image of an article about college recruitment tactics, and then credited the design to an unrelated NYU student…