Hours after the New York Knicks won their first N.B.A. title in more than 50 years, their social media accounts shared a watercolor painting of fans celebrating outside Madison Square Garden in a sea of blue and orange.
It was a big moment for the emerging Brooklyn artist Gavin Snider.
But later that day, one of the most famous artists on social media, Devon Rodriguez, posted his own painting, one with uncanny similarities. There was the same skyline. The same foam finger, and the same Knicks flag waving nearby. The same numbers on the jerseys of specific fans.
Rodriguez asked his followers, nearly 34 million on TikTok alone, to comment “CHAMPS” if they wanted to buy a print of his work for just under $100.
“It was kind of obvious,” Snider said of the visual overlap in a phone interview. “On one hand, you’re upset because hard work has been stolen. And I think the more predominant feeling was like, ‘Why? What’s the goal here?’ This is an artist who has achieved a lot of success.”
Rodriguez did not respond to questions about his painting. He deleted social media posts about it and removed the prints from his online shop.
A spokesman for the Knicks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Rodriguez became popular by posting videos on TikTok in which he drew portraits of strangers on the subway, giving the sketches to his subjects and capturing their emotional reactions. In 2021, he told The New York Times that his commission for sponsored content ranged from $20,000 to $30,000. That was when he had 20 million followers — and before he started posting interviews with celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Nicolas Cage and Jennifer Lopez.
Snider, who has a smaller social media presence, told his 42,000 Instagram followers about his concerns with the Rodriguez painting on Tuesday. “What do you do when someone blatantly steals your art?” he wrote. “I don’t need him to take the post down. I don’t care that he’s selling it. My goal isn’t to have millions of followers. But I would like credit, or at least mention of my artwork being the inspiration for the piece.”
It is not uncommon for artists to create similar compositions, especially when they are covering popular events broadcast on television and documented in thousands of photographs. Snider said he drew on dozens of photographs and videos to create his version of the scene outside Madison Square Garden, which he said was commissioned before the N.B.A. finals by a third party and received the Knicks’ blessing.
Under copyright law, there is a high bar to proving that someone violated another artist’s rights, which is why most disputes end in settlements.
“It is a feature, not a bug, of the copyright system that we have to keep asking these questions, because it helps refine and expand our sense of what matters,” said Virginia Rutledge, an art historian and lawyer.
Snider said he had no comment about pursuing legal action. He is still looking for a resolution with Rodriguez and wants to raise awareness of how artists are — and are not — credited on social media.
“It’s one thing to create artwork based on the Knicks,” he said. “But it’s another thing to create artwork based on somebody else’s work entirely.”
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