PokerPaint Boss Brett Butz in New Copyright Theft Row over Artwork NFTs

The PokerPaint copyright theft saga seems set to continue after the poker art company’s owner, Brett Butz, issued more poker NFTs, advertising them using artwork he doesn’t have permission to use...

Brett you are still using some copyrighted images in your pictures mine included please cease & desist and remove any/all of my photos from these images.

— Danny Maxwell (@MannyDaxwell) December 5, 2021

Butz quickly deleted his tweet, which showed the artwork based on others’ work. Initially he had used it to illustrate his poker NFT offerings, tweeting:

“Releasing some poker NFTs this week! If you’ve liked what we do and love art communities, check them out!”

It’s far from the first time that photographers have had to publicly name and shame the PokerPaint founder into deleting or revising “his”artwork.

Butz’s PokerPaint offerings were outed as copyright theft of the work of several photographers after Hayley Hochstetter went public back in September.

Hochstetter, head of the PokerNews’ photo team for the recent WSOP was enraged after discovering Butz had ignored her wishes that he not use her work.

She tweeted:

“This account reached out for my permission to use one of my photos back in June. I politely declined and explained my reasoning why. A month later, the same person messaged me, having ignored my previous wishes, with an edited image that I had told him he couldn’t create.”

Daniel Negreanu ensured that the emerging PokerPaint scandal received global attention, half-a-million followers seeing his post that described Butz’s approach as “shitty”.

For those not following the latest poker drama. PokerPaint dude stealing property from poker photographers and then selling them without permission.

We should all stand behind the poker photographers on this one. They work hard, and it’s shitty. https://t.co/Z9Raq6Dbh5

— Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) September 25, 2021

It took some time and multiple tweets and call outs from the poker community for Butz to admit that he was in the wrong...

Initially he responded with:

“I understand a lot of you may be upset that I saw a photo on social media and loved it enough to imitate it in a very different style." Incredibly, he added: “No, I'm not opposed to giving photographers a %, it's hard work. I also challenge you to at least try to draw a similar style before criticizing the project I've worked tirelessly on for the past 3 years."

And then he rubbed salt in the wounds by asking those affected to contact him, rather than reaching out to those he had stolen from.

“You can find my contact information on my site if you believe your content was stolen and will be happy to figure out a much more positive approach.”

Eventually Butz conceded that he was out of order, with Hochstetter ensuring that he had no reason to let anything slip through the net.

Appreciate the apology, but claiming ignorance still isn’t the way to go. Now that you’re more aware of the copyright laws, the best path to take is to remove ALL images before major companies get their lawyers involved. (WSOP, WPT, PokerStars, PokerNews, PokerGO)

— Hayley Hochstetler (@hayleyocho) September 27, 2021

Unfortunately, it appears that Butz either has a short memory or doesn’t really care to ensure his products - and earnings, the artwork selling for between $250 to $1500 apiece – aren’t based on work stolen and unattributed to the real creators.

There are several copyrighted pictures that I can spot within a few seconds to which you have no rights whatsoever. It doesn’t seem as if you have learned your lessons from the previous infringement …

— Christian Zetzsche (@zedmaster84) December 5, 2021

This time when confronted by his rotten behaviour, Butz deleted the tweet with the offending collage based on others’ work, but was unapologetic, stating the self-centred and self-promoting:

“Took the collage down, anyways, NFT are available now!” He also claims: “Part of the money from the King's Game goes to the photographer who took it. Enjoy! Posting $10k for the main ticket.”

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