The Internet is built on theft. This won’t surprise anyone. Despite that cold reality, we here at The Autopian Enterprises Ltd Kompany Inc. go out of our way to use only images that are licensed, promotional, or fair use, and we do our best to correctly credit images. We are creators and we respect creators.
What about the flipside of this? That’s a little more complex. While we’d be upset to wake up and find Newsweek (for example) using one of Jason’s drawings as their cover without permission, we are generally cool with people using a limited number of images they find here on forums, social media, et cetera. We want people to know about The Autopian, and there’s a general understanding that people sharing things and not profiting from them get a hall pass.
All we ask is a little credit and a little honesty. This week, we got neither.
Adrian is basically Sherlock Holmes.
That link goes to this Facebook post from the Automotive Art: concepts, renderings, proposals & history pre-1980 Facebook group: 
Ok, Richard. C’mon man. You can do better than that.
Ridiculous. If you’re curious, that comes from this post, which makes it entirely clear that the drawing isn’t a real thing. 
Are we going to sue Richard? No. Absolutely not. Adrian left a comment over there and that’s good enough for us.
Richard seems to be maybe a bit more confused than malicious, but you’d be surprised how often our images end up uncredited as memes or confused bits of history. Here, courtesy of Stef over on our Discord, is me being memed a long time ago:
[Editor’s Note: I’m not upset at all at Richard. I’m thrilled he came across The Bishop’s work — it means our site is growing! And I find it hilarious that he thinks The Bishop’s drawing was some type of prototype. Obviously, some credit would have been nice, but this seems like an honest mistake. -DT]
Is there any evidence that “Richard” is a real person? The profile picture is a terrible composite and the comments are super generic.
Not bitter they didn’t steal any of MY stuff. Not bitter at all *hisses and puffs cigarette*.
I am VERY UPSET. Last week I bought the NFT for that image on Alibaba.
If ya can’t beat em, steal their stuff!
Pretty soon people will be able to launch cheap AI lawyers at this type of stuff. Non-stop litigation in the metaverse. What a world.
Bishop needs a logo, perhaps a bishop chess piece or Autopian A, to work into every design like an easter egg. It may not have been directly stolen but submitted by a reader.
A watermark couldn’t hurt, TBH.
If you’re going to steal, perhaps best not to steal from someone whose style is so incredibly distinctive and original. I guess theft is the sincerest form of flattery?
The Bishop’s takes on interior design have always been my favorite bits of his speculative features; I think they’re brilliant. If I ever have billionaire money and want to do a completely custom build I want the Bishop designing the interior.
This type of data thievery always baffles me. What is the goal of the Facebook poster?
He must have visited the original article in order to find the image in the first place, so if he’d read it (or even just the headline), he’d know that it was not a real GM concept… although, looking at it again, I guess he never really asserts that it originated with GM — just that it’s a concept, which I suppose is technically correct. So if he’s just sharing it in the spirit of: “Hey, this looks cool”, then that’s one thing… but it could easily be misinterpreted by stripping away all context, so why not link the original article?
It reminds me of the way that my uncle gets fooled about once a year into believing that GM will be bringing back the Trans Am when he re-finds photos of those Firebird body kits for modern Camaros.
Reading comprehension is also generally quite poor these days, he might have skimmed over the article and somehow come away with the idea of “this was GM’s actual idea for a Mk3 Corvair” and just run with it.
Or else, Russian troll farm?
The bigger concern here is that people genuinely believe what they read on Facebook.
This is actually low-key amazing. Autopian! Autopian!
The Bishops posts are turning into Galaxy Quest.
There will be a whole generation in the future where his dreams are looked at like real history down to the point of young space hopping mechanics coming across his designs and trying to recreate the historic vehicles from scrap found across the galaxy.
COTD. I want to live in Bishop’s Metaverse.
In the olden days, before toll transponders (1980s), I had an RHD Elan in the US. We have toll booths in my state, and at the time, they took tokens. I got good at throwing the token over the car’s roof at the basket, and most of the time, I got it in.
There were no barriers or cameras then, so if I missed, they did get the token even if I set off the ringer.
as a child one of my favorite driving activities was tossing the coins in the basket from the back seat on the NJ Parkway.
On the few occasions I had to drive a RHD car to work I had to put my access card on a telescoping rod to stick it out the left window and open the gate to the parking garage.
I had a lowered ’90 Miata and the windshield cleared the tollbooth bar on Georgia 400. I loved to slow down just enough to heave two quarters into the basket and then gun it under the arm. Lights flashed and klaxons blared for about 10 seconds until the coins registered. Great fun.
members area and not locked?
Same experience here. Kind of interesting, but I don’t mind.
Your eyeballs are committing content thievery and the attack lawyers are already on retainer.
I’ve commented in order to cement my participation on this day which will live in infamy.
Lol. I forgot. Oh well! Fixed now…
Fixed
You’re the kid who used to ask the teacher if we had homework over the weekend, aren’t you.
NO!, my parents were both school teacher. I remember them throwing parties at the house and seeing my teachers and principle
Was there a bowl full of car keys at these parties? One of my teachers in HS was a former Play Boy “model”. That, and knowing some of the other teachers like I did, I always wondered…
Like a nude beach it is never the people you want going nude or swapping.
Bless your heart