The Time I "Stole" That Picture
/Every few days, someone sends me this Facebook post and asks… “Uhm, what?”
And then he attached an image of the box in question.
I admit, it doesn’t make me look very good…
But honestly, I was thrilled when it first went up a month ago—I’ve been itching to tell this story for a while. Talking shit is one of life’s purest joys, and for once, I had an idiot worth dragging. It felt like the glory days of The Magic Circle Jerk again.
But every time I sat down to write, I’d end up rereading this guy’s old emails to me and scrolling through his social media and… man. It was bleak. Everything just radiated this low, aching sadness. And I realized I couldn’t go full scorched earth on someone whose entire issue with me felt less like anger and more like a cry for attention from someone who felt unloved and unseen.
So I gave him a few weeks—to see if maybe he’d take the post down.
Here’s the thing: he knows he’s lying here. And he knows that I know he’s lying. And he knows I have the emails to prove it.
And yet… the post remains. Which means he must want me to comment on it. Well… okay. 🤷♂️
Even so, I won’t be too mean. I’m not even going to name him—because I don’t want this post becoming the first thing someone sees when they Google him.
That said, I’m also not going to let some dope just invent things about me in a desperate attempt to draw attention to himself. So now I guess it’s time for me—“the mysterious and controversial Andy The Jerx”—to help clarify things.
Some time ago, a certain "Andy The Jerx" – a mysterious and controversial publisher well known in the magic world – released a book that came in a cardboard box.
First, my name is just Andy. This site is called The Jerx. It’s just a play on The Jinx. It’s not my name or a persona. It would be like calling Stan Allen, “Stan The MAGIC Magazine.”
Second, I’m just a writer. Not a publisher. The site has a publisher. That publisher is not me.
Third, I didn’t “release a book that came in a cardboard box,” as if the packaging was some avant-garde part of the artistic statement. I wrote a book. People who support the site at the highest level received that book as a gift. And in order for them to receive it—brace yourself—it had to be mailed. And when things get mailed, they often go in boxes. Cardboard boxes. The box wasn’t some integral part of the book. It was a logistical part of getting the book to people.
What shocked me? The bottom of this box contained a photo of Michael Ammar that I took… and that I had never published!
Well, technically, it was the top of the box.
The shipping box looked something like this:
It was a shirtless picture of Michael Ammar with that caption added. The “YOU” was under the book itself. So it came off as a little surprise joke.
This was my publisher’s idea. I thought it was funny.
Not only was this photo used without my permission, but it was also altered to be presented in a “sexy” or even “sexual” way – an interpretation that does not align with my artistic vision nor with Michael Ammar’s, who immediately supported me.
“altered to be presented in a sexy or even sexual way”
Just to be clear here, I didn’t caption the picture, “Choke on my fat cock, you dumb bitch.”
I wrote: “Someone sexy got a book in the mail.”
This is the terrible “sexual” alteration I made to his precious masterpiece.
“an interpretation that does not align with my artistic vision”
Well, I hate to be the one to say it—certainly not at the expense of your artistic vision—but Michael Ammar looks hot as hell in that photo.
And this photographer—whose entire aesthetic is lifted from film noir—apparently missed the part where film noir is supposed to be drenched in sensuality. If you genuinely didn’t notice the sexiness in Ammar’s shirtless picture, I don’t know what to tell you. Check your pants for genitals—you might be missing them.
Do I think he truly didn’t see the “sexy” aspect of that image?
For his sake, I hope not. No one would ever hire a photographer so artistically oblivious he couldn’t recognize the most obvious, surface-level quality of his own work.
No, he didn’t miss the sexiness. What he saw was an opportunity. An opportunity to act more victimized. And that’s the thread that ran through all my interactions with him: a hunger for injury, for indignation.
(Also, just a friendly tip: if you’re trying to make a copyright case, maybe don’t open with “They completely altered my artistic vision.” That’s actually… kind of the opposite of what you want to say.)
After investigating, it turns out that this image was likely stolen during my major photo exhibition in Quebec at FISM 2022.
Let’s pause there.
There was no “investigating.” I told him directly—in my first message—exactly how I got the image.
And the image wasn’t “stolen.” (Get used to this kind of overwrought grandiosity.)
Nobody dressed in black rappelled through a skylight in the dead of night to snap a photo of the image with a camera hidden inside a hollowed-out cigarette pack.
The image was on display. Someone took a picture of it.
That’s not a heist—it’s what happens when you put things in front of people.
According to Andy The Jerx, someone took a photo of my work and sent it to him… Which, in his view, gave him the right to use it without my consent and without Michael Ammar’s approval.
“According to me”? What happened to that investigation?
Okay, here’s what actually happened.
At FISM 2022, a few different people sent me that shirtless photo of Michael Ammar.
Not seeing it in any context, I thought it was a photoshop, or part of a gag image or meme. People send me that kind of thing from conventions all the time.
Nobody who sent it mentioned a photo exhibition.
Nobody included other images from the show.
Nobody said, “Hey, this is part of a curated art project.”
There was no talk online about this display.
I had no idea it was part of anything formal.
So when a few people sent me a shirtless Ammar photo saying things like, “Hubba hubba!” or “Should I make a tribute video to this?” I assumed—again, not seeing it in context—that it was part of a magic convention inside-joke of some sort.
I posted it on my site with a throwaway line about how hot Ammar looked. It stayed there for sixteen months. Not one person said, “Hey, that’s a copyrighted piece from a ‘major’ photo exhibit.”
So later, when my publisher suggested using it inside the shipping box as a fun little surprise, I said, “Sure.”
That’s it. That’s the entire extent of my malicious plan to “steal” this image.
Obviously, my ignorance of the situation doesn’t give me the right to use the image however I want. I’ve never suggested that. I’m just explaining my mindset—why it never occurred to me to try and track down where the image came from in the first place. At the time, it simply didn’t seem like that kind of thing.
If someone had sent me a picture of Andi Gladwin, stripped to the waist, riding a horse—with Joshua Jay, similarly attired, embracing him from behind—I would have made the same (mistaken) assumption. I would have been just as casual about using it. And just as surprised to learn it wasn’t some inside joke... but the featured image for November in the 2024 Calendar of The Best Erotic Imagery of Magic Shop Co-Owners.
This is the part the photographer just could never wrap his mind around.
He was convinced that I must have recognized his picture as a serious photographic work—been dazzled by its artistry—and thought to myself: "I must… simply must… have this achievement printed on the bottom of my shipping box! And I don’t care who I trample along the way. Consequences be damned!"
And anything I said that didn’t fit that fantasy was, in his mind, an “excuse” or an attempt to “downplay my actions.”
But here’s the thing: only I know what actually happened—and what was in my heart and mind when it did.
If I give you an honest account of the reality, and your takeaway is that this reality somehow "downplays" the seriousness of the grievance you've built up in your head, then you’re just proving my point:
Your reaction is overblown compared to what actually happened.
Does simply taking a photo of an exhibition piece erase copyright and allow someone to claim ownership of an artwork?
Why did he write that?
He wrote it to make it sound like that was my position. It’s not. It never was. And he knows that.
But he can’t quote what I actually said in our interactions—because if he did, he’d sound completely unhinged. So instead, he has to construct this fake argument, imply I suggeted it, and then bravely take a stand against the thing I never said.
Fortunately, with the support of two lawyer friends in Canada and the United States, we managed to compel Andy The Jerx to pay for the usage rights in order to avoid a lawsuit in the US – a country where the justice system takes copyright violations very seriously.
Right. Except... no.
For some reason, he’s decided to lie about this too.
I wasn’t “compelled” to do jack-shit.
The truth is: the moment I found out about the situation—on November 8th, 2023—I reached out to him to ask how I could make it right. This was before he contacted me. Before his “lawyer” contacted me. (I’m not naming that guy either, because many of you know him, and honestly… this whole thing is embarrassing for him.)
No one had to track me down. No one had to “compel” me to pay. That’s literally why I reached out in the first place.
But unfortunately, I was dealing with unserious people.
We couldn’t just agree on a reasonable fee and move on like adults. How would he get to perform his victimhood if this ended quickly and reasonably?
At first, they asked me to have all the boxes returned so they could be destroyed.
I told them, essentially, “Great news! These were just the shipping boxes. Very few people would hold onto them. They’re likely almost all in the garbage already.”
You’d think that would make him happy, right?
Apparently not, as this was his response:
“It deeply saddens me to see my FINE-WORK end up in a trash can.”
Yes, those are his caps.
And that’s when I knew I wasn’t dealing with someone acting in good faith. I was dealing with a performance.
He sent me hundreds of words describing how distressed and distraught he was over seeing his photograph “defaced” in this way.
Then my lawyer-friend—who was helping me navigate all this—asked a very reasonable question.
You see, back in 2023, instead of reaching out to me directly, the photographer had gone straight to Facebook—posting a photo of the inside of the box and staging a bit of grievance theater for the crowd.
And my friend asked:
“If this image was so upsetting to him, why did he share it in a Facebook group with over ten times the audience of the people who received your book?”
Huh. Good question.
Almost like the goal wasn’t privacy or artistic protection… but amplification.
I was happy to pay him a fair usage rate for the image. It’s not-easy to price the licensing of a photo for something like this—non-promotional, non-commercial, no revenue attached. I didn’t profit from the image. I lost money by having custom boxes printed. The image wasn’t used to sell anything. It wasn’t an ad. It wasn’t on a product. It was an Easter egg inside shipping packaging.
To be safe, I decided to treat the image as if it were used on actual customer-facing product packaging. I found standard rates for that kind of usage… and then offered him a significant multiple of that rate.
To make sure the offer was fair, I consulted with an IP attorney, two premier editorial photographers, and even reached out to the Helmut Newton Foundation and the Richard Avedon Foundation to talk with their licensing departments.
Eventually, we settled on a price and I gladly paid it.
I made other offers too. I told them from the start I wanted to turn this into a positive situation for him.
At one point, during the discussions, I went to the photographer’s Instagram and saw where he announced a book of his magic photography and saw this:
7 likes. No comments. Less than 1% of people who were actively following him were excited enough about the book announcement to even like the post. So I offered to help him promote it on my site. It could be a double win for him. He’d get paid a licensing fee, and more importantly, I would promote his work and try to help him sell his upcoming book. Even a small portion of my readership could be 1000s of dollars in book sales for an expensive art book. He declined. Which is fine. But do we now have to pretend I was acting in “bad faith” and was somehow unwilling to pay back for my mistake?
I got the distinct sense that he felt he needed to be really upset—just in case he wanted to sue and claim damages.
How else do you explain emails like this?
“The [licensing fee] will never cover the seriousness of the grievances. […] Andy must stop deluding himself because he is unaware of the gravity of his successive mistakes, which are unforgivable”
Unforgivable.
Remind yourself: we’re talking about putting an image of Michael Ammar—looking fantastic, by the way—inside a shipping box.
Although he eventually issued an apology, his bad faith was evident: excuses, weak justifications, and various attempts to downplay his actions.
Here’s what actually happened:
The photographer and his lawyer asked that I issue an apology. I was happy to—because I genuinely did make a mistake, and he deserved an apology. Here’s the wording the person acting as HIS LAWYER suggested to me:
“I inadvertently used an image without consulting the artist, and the subject - Michael Ammar - but once it was brought to my attention, I reached out and arranged for the appropriate license for having used it, etc. "
And here’s what I posted on the site:
In this season’s book mailing, I used a photo of Michael Ammar on the inside of the shipping box. What I didn’t realize at the time was that that picture was part of an as-yet-unrealized photography project by [the photographer]. When I learned that, I immediately reached out to him to make things right and work out a licensing fee for the pic.
In the magic community, the concept of “intellectual property” is often pooh-poohed (if not just outright poopoo’d) but paying for my use of the image was clearly the right thing to do.
It was, for all intents and purposes, exactly what was asked for—only in my own words. I acknowledged the mistake, clarified the timeline, and emphasized that paying for the image was the “right thing to do” and something I wanted to do as soon as I was aware of the issue. Clearly the words of someone who knows he was in the wrong.
Okay, end of story, right?
Nope. A month later, I get this email.
I am not satisfied with your apologies as they do not reflect sincerity. You downplay your serious mistake to your advantage {…}
I want to inform you that I will compile a dossier on the severity of this theft, which I will submit to the magical press in Germany, France, England, and the United States (web and magazine press). I have maintained good professional relationships with these media for over 20 years, and I believe it is necessary to bring this matter to their attention so that magicians understand the importance of photo theft in our magic industry.
I strongly encourage you to rephrase your apologies sincerely, explaining clearly what actually happened.
My commitment to moderating the content of my dossier in the magical press depends on the sincerity and appropriateness of your apologies.
Does this sound like a rational person?
After receiving my payment (the same day as we agreed on a price), my public apology (which was, again, literally based on the one they suggested), and an offer to promote his work on the most widely read magic site on the internet…
He waits a month.
Then tells me he’s compiling a “dossier on the severity of this theft.”
And if I don’t issue a more “sincere and appropriate apology,” he’s taking his dossier to the “magical press.”
At some point we went from “protecting artistic integrity” to “Liam Neeson from Taken,” but for cardboard boxes.
Of course, I begged him: “Oh no! Please don’t go to the magical press!”
I’m kidding. You’ll be glad to know I basically told him to fuck off and do whatever he wants. I’m done with this issue.
And still—until now—I never mentioned this situation publicly.
Then, over a year later, he writes the Facebook post at the top of this whole saga.
I get it. He’s a frustrated artist. There’s no buzz around his work. No real momentum. No interest. And if he just told the truth—"Someone accidentally used my image, we worked it out, I got paid"—people would shrug and say, “Who gives a shit? Move on with your life.”
So instead, he needs to make it sound dramatic.
That the photo was “stolen” (it was publicly displayed, and someone took a photo of it).
That there was an “investigation” (the investigation consisted of me writing him and telling him what happened).
That I had to be “compelled” to pay (I reached out before he or his lawyer contacted me).
My mistake was in assuming this photo was already an image people were having fun with, and I was just continuing in that spirit.
Obviously, I was wrong about that. And that’s why I did what I could to own it and make things right.
But now:
After he dragged out our original negotiations for weeks…
After he followed up a month later with his melodramatic-blackmail “dossier” email…
And after he waited over a year to publicly post this mess of fabrications…
I finally wrote to him and said, essentially: “Look, I don’t know why you’re dragging this up, but now I’ll have to respond to this on the site.”
His reaction?
He told me that my response “would not receive much support from magicians,” and that I should “measure the consequences of the next step” and avoid “ruining [my] reputation.”
Here’s the thing: he doesn’t know my reputation. He has no understanding of who I am or what this site is about.
A conservative estimate is that I’ve spent over 6,000 hours just on the writing—not the creation, just the writing—of the content I’ve been giving away for free on this site for a decade.
To this photographer I want to say: You’re going to have a hard time convincing even the most casual reader that I’m some “taker” who’s just out for himself.
The truth is, I was kind and apologetic to you—until you proved to be an unreasonable douchebag.
There’s an alternate universe where we made the best of an unfortunate situation together. One where you took my money, my support, maybe even my picture for your book. We could’ve turned a dumb misunderstanding into something cool. Something mutual. Something human.
But you were so committed to your hissy fit that there was never a path forward.
If you are as miserable as you seem, I genuinely hope you get help. Because this is no way to go through life—turning every minor slight into a moral catastrophe. It’s exhausting. For everyone, but especially for you
I’m not worried about my reputation. It’s safe from your horseshit story, poorly told.
And if anyone truly believes I poured this much time and energy into this site—and into the art of magic—just to cash it all in to steal your picture… then they’re fucking brain-dead and not the kind of person I’m here to connect with anyway.
Here’s one last glimpse into the personality at the center of all this…
This is how he ended his last email to me—the response to my email where I said that if he’s still going to be bringing this up, I would finally need to respond publicly.
This is what he wrote, after a year-and-a-half-long slow-motion tantrum on his part, capped off by his facebook post that he had just made earlier that day.
“Good luck Andy. I’m done with this dispute a long time ago. Just turn the page and move on.”
Oh god… choke on my fat cock, you dumb bitch.