Jim Shipman, criminal proprietor of Outlaw Games, has come back again to defraud you and everyone who ever knew you.
As you may know, Shippy has now had his company’s Tunnels & Trolls products removed from Lulu, Amazon and several other outlets in the wake of his art theft, ebay fraud, wikipedia vandalism, and impersonating others. He did take the Outlaw Press website down for a time, but he has recently put it back up and is continuing to sell all the same products with the same stolen art. He appears to currently be in the process of contacting all of his old customers to inform them that he’s back in business. He even states that he intends to publish new Tunnels & Trolls products.
The Outlaw Press website can be found at its original home on the Angelfire servers (http://outlawpress.angelfire.com/index.html), however, he has also has a new home for the site here: http://outlawpress.org/. Amusingly, he has attempted to disguise the host of the website. A notice at the bottom of his opening page states that the site is hosted in Zurich, Switzerland, and he even provides an e-mail address for the web host. However, a quick DNS lookup reveals that the site is actually hosted by Yahoo. Nice try!
You will notice that Shipman is still insisting on stating that he sells “Official Tunnels & Trolls Products”. Both Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo and T&T creator Ken St Andre have categorically said that he no longer has permission to produce T&T material.
So as a bonus to Jimmy boy, here’s yet another compiled PDF comparing the art in his products to the original pieces from the artists – all of who say he doesn’t have permission, and certainly never paid him for, their art.
Outlaw Press Covers Comparison Part 2
and for those of you who forget easily, here’s Part 1 again.
Here’s the complete list of artists and writers who have confirmed that their material was stolen or used without permission by Shipman:
Artists
- Al Rio
- Alan Lathwell
- Alejandro Gutierrez
- Allen Palmer
- Andrew Smith
- Astrid Castle
- Bera Karoly
- Bill Corbett
- Carolina Eade
- Chad Sergesketter
- Chris Quilliams
- Claire Salvatori
- Dagmar Jung
- Dan Mills
- Daniel Falck
- Daniel Horne
- Daniel Hughes
- Darrenn E. Canton
- David Arthur Woodward
- David Lightfoot
- Ernest Hogan
- Esko Tolvanen
- Fredrik Rahmqvist
- Goran Josic
- Henning Janssen
- Isabelle Davis
- J. P. Targete
- Jan Patrik Krasny
- Jason Debit
- Jeff Lee Johnson
- Jhoneil Centeno
- Johann Valentin Andree
- John Shannon
- Jon Hodgson
- Ken Jeremiassen
- Kent Burles
- Kory K
- Liz Danforth
- M.E. Volmar
- Martin McKenna
- Martin McKeown
- Mats Minnhagen
- Matthew Kukosky
- Mauricio Herrera
- Michael Bielaczyc
- Michael Ivan
- Nicolai Gortz
- Norbert Vakulya
- Pål Lövendahl
- Per Eriksson
- Philippe Xavier
- Rags Morales
- Rick Sardinha
- Selina Fenech
- Simon Dominic
- Simon Lee Tranter
- Storn A. Cook
- Sven Dännart
- Sylvain Despretz
- Terry Ernest
- Thom Scott
- Tibor Szendrei
- Ursula Vernon
- Zoltan Boros
- Gabor Szikszai
Writers
- Andy R. Holmes
- Chris Conboy
- Garen Ewing
- Gianmatteo Tonci
- Ken St Andre
- Oliver Legrand
- Tom K. Loney
- Tori Bergquist
So everywhere you see this guy spring up – try to crush him and prevent him from profiting from his criminal activity.
Geek Related 
Update: His Angelfire site has been taken down by Lycos due to a “Terms of Service Violation.” His new Yahoo site is still active though. Let’s get that one down too! Keep up the good fight!
I am surprised someone has not busted a cap in this guy. It’s not like the world would miss him.
Jesus this guy is very persistent.
Yep. This is how people get away with so much in our society. You can be as blatant as you want and do it as much as you want, until you run afoul of the right person with money/power. The old balance was that if you messed with otherwise poor people, they would give you a good beatdown. Well, now that’s illegal and wrong and gets you put in prison for a long time, but you can do this kind of crap with impunity. Welcome to civilization.
Son of a bitch, this guy just won’t let it go! We’ve got to do something, as a community. Anyone know any good hackers to screw up his site?
It probably isn’t worthwhile for any of the individual authors or writers to go after him, but why don’t they all get together and contact a lawyer to pursue this guy?
Getting a lawyer to draw up a cease and desist wouldn’t cost much if that’s all they want. Or if they want to pursue more if it is spread out among even just 20 of these creators it still won’t be much unless it goes to an actual trial and even then they may get their money back and more.
The problem is these are random Internet artists. Many are located in other countries. If even the T&T IP owners, who are at least allegedly somewhat a company, won’t do anything, then how are 70 people who have never met each other supposed to? Heck, some of the art was actually bought and owned by “big” gaming companies, but they haven’t done anything either. Looks like “siccing bikers on him” is probably the best option.
You can add me on the official list of writers whose materials have been used without authorization by James Shipman/Outlaw Press. In my case, he used a solo project that I submitted to him 2 years ago and that was far from being finalized. He offered it recently as a “new” (finished) product on his new website.
In further news, Yahoo took his new site down, but now he’s emailing everyone whose email he can get trying to sell them his tainted goods… See http://esotericmurmurs.blogspot.com/2010/10/spam-from-tunnels-trollss-favorite.html for the details!