Tag Archives: Germany

Update | Maze Marauder Mitigated

Posted on by Standard 1

So, a while back… did you read about the weasel who grabbed a bunch of mazes online and put them into a self-published print-on-demand book to be sold all over the damn internet?

I guess I never did update, lots of the listings are down or read as “Temporarily Unavailable.” I would like them to read as “⚠ 404 Page Not Found.“

I did get two short emails from the offender. Thank you to Jakob Mewes for reaching out! I never did hear back from Jakob after reaching out for further details. Did you Google AiXeLsyD and/or Gasoline Dion and find me here? I’d love to know!

I did get two emails from Mr. Heppke.

From: Kurt Heppke <mail@kurtheppke.com>
Date: Mon, Jun 30, 2025 at 8:22 AM
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Use of My Artwork in Your Book – DMCA & Cease-and-Desist
To: Eric Carroll <red@acted.yo>


Dear Mr. Carrol,

I'm sorry for using your trademarked images and I really want to apologize for that. I took the images from Pinterest and did not check the license. I made a mistake. 
I have requested today that the book be stopped selling immediately and will send you confirmation as soon as I have it.
I hereby give you written confirmation that I will no longer use your work.
I also confirm the immediate cessation of any further use or reproduction of your work in any form.

I am truly sorry for the trouble I have caused you.

I would like to make one more point about your WordPress post " Stolen Mazes! (Someone took my art.)". It gives the impression that I have flooded half the world with my books. No. I've sold the book 8 times in the last 3 years. So I think the damage is limited.
That's not an excuse! 

Anyway, thank you for your patience and kindness and I will definitely change my behavior when it comes to checking licenses.

Best regards

Kurt Heppke

---
Kurt Heppke
Tel: +## ### ########
Mail: mail@kurtheppke.com
Homepage: www.kurtheppke.com

And, then this, referencing the photo below:

From: Kurt Heppke <mail@kurtheppke.com>
Date: Tue, Jul 1, 2025 at 11:01 AM
Subject: Re: Unauthorized Use of My Artwork in Your Book – DMCA & Cease-and-Desist
To: Eric Carroll <red@cted.yo>


Dear Mr. Carroll,



I have withdrawn my book "Labyrinthe" from sale and would like to inform you of this, as promised:

Labyrinthe
Leichte Schwere und ganz ganz Schwere

ISBN-13: 9783756233120
Verlag: Books on Demand
Erscheinungsdatum: 30.06.2022




the German sentence:

"Wir haben Ihr Buch wunschgemäss für Bestellungen aus dem Buchhandel gesperrt. Auch die Listung für den internationalen Vertrieb und der E-Book-Vertrieb wurden damit automatisch ausgesetzt."

means:

"We have blocked your book from bookstore orders as requested. The listing for international distribution and e-book distribution have also been automatically suspended."


I would like to apologize once again and thank you for your patience and kindness.

Best regards

---
Kurt Heppke
Tel: +## ### ########
Mail: mail@kurtheppke.com
Homepage: www.kurtheppke.com

And this was in there:

the German sentence: "Wir haben Ihr Buch wunschgemäss für Bestellungen aus dem Buchhandel gesperrt. Auch die Listung für den internationalen Vertrieb und der E-Book-Vertrieb wurden damit automatisch ausgesetzt." means: "We have blocked your book from bookstore orders as requested. The listing for international distribution and e-book distribution have also been automatically suspended."

✍️

I did not reply, as I am still salty about it. A little theft is still theft. I know Joe Wos sent something over to the effect of a Cease & Desist or DMCA, and Brian Hilbert commented on my last post. I never did get a comment from Sean C. Jackson. Not sure how many other maze artists were robbed. I never did track any others down.

Please, don’t steal others’ art & sell it. I have a lot here for free, like the ones that showed up in this book of plundered pathways.

<shameless plug> You can support your favorite punk rock letter-writing goofball maze artist by buying a copy of So I Finally Made a Maze Book or You Can See Yourself Out, or getting some cool swag from my TeePublic or RedBubble stores. </shameless plug> 

I did just upload some Halloween mazes, and TeePublic is having a sale. You can always get my books & merch up top. I sell tens of copies worldwide myself, I don’t need any help from art thieves.

I’m sadly still morbidly curious to get my hands on a copy of this outrage. Share your stories of art theft in the comments, or comment here if your stuff was also uncredited in this book!

Stolen Mazes! (Someone took my art.) 🤬

Posted on by Standard 7

So, I recently got an interesting message via my contact form:

Hello, I bought a book in germany and in that book a "Kurt Heppke" from "Norderstedt : Books on Demand" is using your artwork. Did you ever give permission to that? I can send you more information if needed. Greetings from Germany, Hamburg

I did write back, but have yet to receive a reply. I would like to thank you Jakob, for reaching out! Not sure how you found me, but then again maybe I am sure as the one stolen maze is kind of highly specific in subject matter, but we’ll get to that.

I did do some light Googling though, like a modern-day super lazy Sherlock Holmes (or at least Dick Tracy). The ever-so-helpful auto AI summary was actually kind of enlightening…

An AI summary via Google about some weenis that stole a bunch of mazes to create print-on-demand books.

Yeah. That one past stuck out.

“He finds inspiration for his books by browsing graphic portals and libraries.”

I take that to mean “Bruh finds shit on Pinterest or Google image search and steals it to put into his books.”

Cover of Labyrinthe: Leichte Schwere und ganz ganz Schwere by Kurt Heppke, stealer of images.

I did find a book creatively titled Labyrinthe: Leichte Schwere und ganz ganz Schwere, which according to Google Translate says Labyrinths: Light, heavy, and very, very heavy. It luckily had a link that looked like a preview link, and I was able to see inside part of the book.

Mr. Heppke has a website, and apparently several books. I know that print-on-demand can be looked down upon by “real” publishers, and these are considered “low content” books, but theft is theft.

I have been drawing mazes since I was a kid, maybe 4th grade or so? I have put a bunch up on the internet (especially at this blog among other older sites) for free over the years. I don’t need this dude or anybody stealing my stuff, taking credit for it, or making money off of it. Oh yeah, taking credit? Dude has stones. That sure looks like a © 2022 to me by his name in a book full of mazes that he didn’t draw.

Two of my mazes appear to have been pilfered:

Bruh took a bunch of mazes, but these are mine,

The original posts can be found here:

Help AiXeLsyD get to the AmericanMusic Café!
✍ Today’s Maze ✍

I know I have pinned them in the past, so they may be floating around there too. There are probably about 100 people on the planet who have heard, saw, heard about, or remember my old punk band, AiXeLsyD. Why take that maze? Our logo is right there beside a terrible drawing of my 1986 Buick SkyHawk. Weird. Also, it name drops Sheetz & Wendy’s as places to not stop (as well as a nudie bar). They may have a harder copyright infringement case than me? 🤣 I’m sure the maze is much older than 2012. The quality of the scan & the coloring is BAD.

The AiXeL-Mobile (1986 Buick SkyHawk)

I have thought about collecting all my old stuff for a book… but the thought of checking to see if they’re passable & providing solutions is overwhelming, and now that I put out You Can See Yourself Out, I feel like I have a level of quality that I need to maintain. Drawing the mazes & posting them has always kind of been a creative outlet & stress relief for me. I think I’d need to re-scan the pile of stuff that I have, and the stuff that I just posted to social media with phone pictures if I were to do it right… and include solitions.

I’m not doing art to get rich, or even make a living… but if I can fund keeping this blog AiXeLsyD13.com, and buy some art supplies, that would be awesome. I have made tens of dollars off of my books and merch. That’s not a complaint by any means, but some dude across the globe shouldn’t be making money off of my art. (As an aside, check this shit out! Art theft is rampant, and following @kilkennycat_art on Threads has opened my eyes to it.)

Which brings me to the other mazes here. I’m sure just by looking at the style, there’s a few mazes by renowned cartoonist, maze artist, & educational television host Joe Wos. I think there’s at least one by Sean C. Jackson. The cover appears to be by Brian Hilbert (Check out his Pittsburgh maze!).

Maze artists: Is your maze art here?

An index of stolen mazes assembled & being sold by Kurt Heppke.

I have tried to lift up other maze artists here. It’s a weird little niche. We gotta look out for each other, in my opinion. I did post about this issue on r/mazes, too.

I’m unsure of my next step. Is reaching out directly to Norderstedt Books on Demand and/or Kurt Heppke directly via email with some sort of cease and desist the way to go? Is that at all official? Is Google Translate even gonna get it right?

I don’t have any written verbiage here about my mazes being copyrighted, but I do have dated posts, and I think copyright is implied with any created works… no? I have no idea how any of it works really within the US, let alone internationally & specifically in Germany.

It also looks like this damn thing is available on more than a few sites:

…and so many more.

At any rate, I implore you to by mazes (or any art) from the artist through their official channels… or enjoy the many free mazes that are put out there by all of us.

So, Cease-and-Desist email or letter? DMCA Takedown? Both? Lawyer up? I’m assuming there is not much to financially recover with print-on-demand sales. I just don’t want anyone making money off of my art other than myself.

<shameless plug> Speaking of that, you can support your favorite punk rock letter-writing goofball maze artist by buying a copy of So I Finally Made a Maze Book or You Can See Yourself Out, or getting some cool swag from my TeePublic or RedBubble stores. </shameless plug> If you’re not inclined to make a purchase, that’s cool too. Maybe share the links, or just enjoy all the free mazes here, & check out all the other maze artists?

I look forward to your thoughts & advice in the comments!

God’s Spam

Posted on by Standard 7

Full Moon view from earth In Belgium (Hamois).

W(aL)D

Sometimes,  like to reply to spam emails.  I really wish this author would have written back to me.

From: Mrs.Linda Vells <sheryely@aol.com>
To:
Sent: Thursday, October 20, 2011
Subject: Re: GOD’S PROJECT

Dearest Friend ,
I am Mrs.Linda Huspage Vells from Netherland, I am 68 years old, I am suffering from a long time cancer of the breast, from all indication my conditions is really deteriorating and it is quite obvious that I can’t work or do any stressful thing, according to my doctors they have advised me that I may not live for the next two months, this is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage. I was brought up from a motherless babies home was married to my late husband for twenty years without a child,
My Husband Huspage died in a fatal motor accident before his death we were true Christians. Since his death I decided not to re-marry,I sold all my inherited belongings and deposited all the sum of USD$4.6 Million dollars with a Bank in London. Presently, this money is still with the Bank and the management just wrote me as the true owner to come forward to receive the money or rather issue a letter of authorization to somebody to receive it on my behalf since I can not come over because of my illness.
So instead of getting it confiscated I rather have someone whom I can trust to receive the funds and utilize it according to my wishes. And the best part of it is, the Bank told me in the letter that they can have the funds released to my approved person .
Presently, I am using my laptop in the hospital at Germany where I have been undergoing treatment for my sickness. I have since lost my ability to talk and my doctors have told me that I have only more 2 months to live.
It is my last wish to see atleast 60% of this money is
invested/donated to any organisation/buisness of your choice and distributed each year among the charity organization, e.g. the poor homes, the motherless babies home where I came from, the deaf homes, and churches etc and 40% will be for your Well doing.
All I seek for is a God fearing person like you ,who will carry out my last wishes and before I emailed you today i prayed and the holy spirit gave me the confidence to send you this email. I took this decision, before I rest in peace because my time will soon be up. As soon as I receive your reply I will give you the contact of the Bank in London.
Please send me your Full name,full Address,Age,Occupation and phone no.
All I need from you is a confidential assurance that the funds when received by you will be used for the said purpose, Nowadays there are so much scams going on in the internet and it is difficult to trust but I don’t know why the Holy spirit still approved me to email you about this out of few email addresses I have from the internet, yours was the only one that my mind convinced me to contact.
Waiting for your reply.
Yours in Christ,
Mrs.Linda Vells

Of course I was interested.  Invoking God, motherless children, and Cancer in this not-quite Nigerian Scam?

From: Waldo Lunar <world.and.lunar.domination@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, Oct 20, 2011
Subject: Re: GOD’S PROJECT
To: sheryely@aol.com

Hello Mrs. Vells,

Thank you for taking the time to write.  What an exciting opportunity God has in his plan for us!  I am sorry to hear about your breast cancer and the passing of your husband.  I have yet to have any children, but I do have a plan for world (and lunar) domination that I consider dear to me like it were a child.

I do not mean to question the work of the Holy Spirit… but you can forgive me if my skeptical side sees this as perhaps some sort of scam?  I have heard that there is no cancer in the Netherlands because of all the fish in the diet.  I’m also suspicous that your email address, “sheryely@aol.com“, doesn’t look anything like your name.  How do I know that this isn’t the work of the devil?  Lucifer is a tricky one!  Also, one does not become ruler of the earth (and moon) by being too trusting, if you know what I mean.

I do not feel comfortable divulging my full name, full address, age, occupation & phone number.  I would have to assume that were one on a true mission from God (like the Blues Brothers) that he would have provided you this information in addition to my email address.  I will share my occupation…  Your Future Emperor of the Earth (and Moon).  I don’t have an address currently recognized by any government (save for Monaco, Nauru, and Lichtenstein), and on top of that there is no postal service here in the Sea of Tranqulity.  I’m on the lunar surface overseeing the survey process in order to build the first Chick-fil-A on the moon.

Perhaps you can put the cash in an envelope, and leave it at a drop point where I can pick it up upon my return to earth?  This really is your best course of action.  With the current state of banking in the United States, I don’t want to risk such a large transfer to my US-held accounts.  I also don’t want the government to slap me with a gift tax.  I’ll need funding to keep my minions happy, and eventually all material wealth will be mine anyway.  As my grandfather used to say, “Why piss in the face of progress?”  Your donation will be appreciated!  Do you want to see if my minions can put your head in a jar, like the celebrities on Futurama?  Perhaps it can be arranged.  I’ll need an overseer of the state approved religion, and someone with direct communications to God really would fit the bill.  Please consider my offer for decapitated immortality!

Then we could work together on your plan to eliminate the poor houses, deaf houses, and motherless children in the name of the church.  We may also have a management position open at Chick-fil-A.  I will put in a good word for you.  They dig the religious thing.

Now we need a good drop point in Germany… perhaps somewhere near a beer garden?  I do love to drink beer and wear my lederhosen!  I’ll leave it up to your best judgement, and I’ll pick it up whenever you tell me it’s ready.  I would like some of it in small bills though… as to not annoy the Chick-fil-A when I place my orders.  I prefer to communicate via email, it’s the only reliable form of correspondence here on the moon.

My pleasure,
-Waldo Lunar
World (and Lunar) Domination

✉

A series of Chick-fil-A trucks at the Airport ...

Do you have lunar-surface tires?

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