AFL apologises to graphic designer Tyson Beck

The Australian Football League has come forward and apologised for copying the artwork of Tyson Beck, a graphic designer based in Adelaide. The league replicated his work and used the same for promoting its upcoming Multicultural Round of the weekend.

Beck is known for developing creative artworks for the world’s most popular sports leagues like NBA and NFL. His extraordinary creative pieces are available online for the public to view. The graphic designer believes that the copied artwork was taken from online sources.

Beck’s original design is of Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James of NBA and was created in May. It was not commissioned by the league. The replicated artwork was for the marketing of AFL's Multicultural Round. An AFL spokesperson said that the plagiarism is the fault of the agency the league hired for the campaign and it is not at all acceptable.

Beck declined to claim any compensation and said that his work was used by AFL from the very beginning of the designing process. “With the profession that I do, a lot of times my work is taken as inspiration, which is completely fine in most cases, but on further looking at it when I put my design next to the design that the AFL had made, it passed the line of being used as inspiration,” he said. He further confirmed that it was a complete case of plagiarism as the entire work was replicated.

As soon as Beck found that his work has been copied, he immediately emailed and tweeted to the AFL. The response from the league was received the following morning. According to the graphic designer, whoever is found copying his art hardly responses to his emails or questions, but AFL was different. The head of the media at AFL apologised for whatever happened.

Tyson Beck seemed satisfied the way AFL and the agency responded to his queries and praised their sincerity and honesty in their apologies.

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