Piece in American Psycho

If anyone has seen the film:

There's a 20 foot tall piece hanging in Patrick Bateman's apartment, of a business type in black and white seemingly being crushed under the weight of the world. Does anyone know who's it is?

Humbert

Did you ever see 'The Moderns?' (Alan Rudolph, 1988). Neat flick, and the background art is terrific - even iconizing Gertrude Stein and Hemmingway.

My wife was watching a Tommy Chong movie a few years back, and she came running in exclaiming that my work was in the movie. I think it was 'Far Out Man.' Sure enough, hanging on his bedroom wall was a black-light version of a print I had made in 1969 - stolen. I mean a poster company ripped off the image, published it as a black-light, and it held it's place as a best-seller for a couple of years. Maybe I should file for royalties,eh?

Yep, coypywrit. At that time the notice itself was 'intent to copywrite' and was supposed to protect. However, before you could sue, you would have to formally coyprite.

Actually, I did originally try to sue the company that stole the image. The cheapest was was to ask the DA in Los Angeles to file criminal charges against the publisher. As my attorney put it, if the DA thought the company to LA economy, he wouldn't file charges, if not, he would. Well, the publisher was paying its taxes, so LA protected it. The next step would have cost me several grand up-front - a civil action. Completely out of my range. And it's still out of my range, of course. I believe the statute of limitations has long expired, at any rate. (I think it's only a year in California for a civil suit.) The only thing I accomplished by my little action was that Platt Poster company removed my name and copyrite notice from their further reprints of the product.

Nope, didn't see it. And as for good taste - well, I don't know. The black light version of my work was pretty atrocious, in my view. The original was a pen and ink drawing, and quite nice. Me, being such a great buiness mogul, would take a handfull of prints out and sell them in local 'head shops' whenever I needed some cash. It was pretty easy to make thirty bucks in an afternoon. In 1969 thirty bucks was not bad.

But I'm considering an ultimate retaliation, and that is re-releasing the print, in full color, and marketing it by capping on the notoriety of the rip-off. A nostalgia item, yes? I don't know, but the thought has occured to me. If I do this, maybe I could get an injunction against the sale of the illegal edition, since it is still being sold. If I won the lotto, maybe I could afford all this legal stuff. But then, if I won the lotto, what's the point?