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Who created the Music Notes characters ?

How it began.

On Saturday 25th January 2025 I saw this video in my Instagram feed :

https://www.instagram.com/p/DFN0QRRzDFX

It features Henry Link speaking about dance and music. The T-shirt he wears catches my attention, as it features the noteman character which I have created back in 2007-2008.

Moreover there is a logo on top, which turns out to be Henry Link’s brand.

It made me incredebly angry to see that my designs had been copied and were being used by someome else without even asking me, let alone mention me.

I then commented the video to let people know that this design was a copy of mine, and proceeded to send a DM to Link.

To which he answered:

Then we had a call and he explained that the design was not his own, but had been created at his request by a Taiwanese dancer/designer named AGA back in 2006. People nicknamed Link “Mr Music Man” because of his musicality, and that’s where the idea came from.

He wouldn’t have liked the design, which is why he hadn’t used it until recently.

So the characters were used for Buddha Stretch’s “Step ya Game up” event around 2015.

Basically hard to prove anything. There weren’t all these social networks in 2006. Link’s nickname seemed credible. I thanked Link, removed my posts and comments.

However memory is not always the most reliable thing, and when assessing a situation it should be based on facts. Therefore I proceeded to contact the person who had created the designs : AGA.

Here are some excerpts of our conversation :

To me this confirms that he had seen my designs before creating his own.

Besides there is no mention of any date (2006?)

I registered my brand back in 2008 in France :

And there were several occasions to see my Tee-shirts. Bruce Ykanji wore them, as well as Ejoe.

Back in 2010 Ejoe was judging Juste Debout, and that’s how he saw the Music Notes T-Shirts.

It was public as I was active on social media. Not to mention this video which I posted back in 2013.

The first time when those characters were used by someone else seems to be 2015. Check the date below:

In summary : do I think Henry Link and Buddha Stretch did something wrong? Probably not because they didn’t create the designs and didn’t know where the inspiration came from.

Did AGA get “inspired” by my designs ? I do think do.

What am I after ? This is not about money, but about giving credit where it’s due. When you create something, you don’t want it to be used without your permission.

What’s next ? I’m open for a collaboration with people who’d like to use the music notes characters. But I should be credited as the creator. If someone is making money with my ideas, then I should get a share even if it’s not much. That’s the least I would expect.

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