Jim Sylvia, a Los Angeles-based tattoo artist alleges that the artwork for the recently announced four-way split from Bayside, Saves The Day, I Am The Avalanche, and Transit features artwork plagiarized from an original tattoo he designed for Luis Dubuc of The Secret Handshake. Sylvia said this via his blog:

Back on Saturday February 20th 2010, I tattooed the hands of Luis Dubuc, (The Secret Handshake & Of Legends). One of those tattoos was the wolf head pictured. Today I received multiple emails from clients and friends of mine, bringing to my attention the artwork on the split 7″ of the bands Bayside, Saves The Day, I Am The Avalanche or Transit. I know that the bands are not involved in the artwork, it just reflects badly on their reputation. I have been in contact with Rise Records, the labels and management responsible for this issue. Hopefully they can straighten this whole issue out.

Jeffrey Everett of Rockville, Maryland is the "artist" at El Jefe Designs that stole and/or copied a tattoo out of my portfolio. He then sold it to Rise Records as his own original artwork for the cover of a new split album. It's not the fault of the bands involved. I guess he thought he could just blatantly steal my artwork and no one would notice. Leaving me wondering, how many other artists has he taken from and sold to other bands/labels? As an artist I know that it is easy to be inspired by the art of others, but plagiarism is unacceptable.

Check out the blog entry with larger images here.