The Kike Koki vs. Kiki Koki infringement issue update

The Kike Koki vs. Kiki Koki infringement issue update

I reported about a possible case about a comic artist being ripped off here: Kike Koki vs. Kiki Koki.

Dave Alvarez's Kike to the left, and Ed Rodriguez's version on the right. 

 Talking with Dave Alavrez regarding this issue I learned that Ed Rodriguez was made aware back in 2010 when he debuted his character that there was a Kike Koki already established.

Point one:

Yet back in 2010 Borders covered up the existence of Kike Koki in their Puerto Rico story, along with not having any of the Kike Koki books from Dave Alvarez’s Kike Koki book in  stock that day, considering he had released two tomes of his book just recently there himself. 

 Point two:

Dave, having recently contacted an attorney and upon visiting the attorney he learned that the attorney represented one of the many merchandise distributors that handle Kiki, and he couldn’t represent him directly yet was told that his client knew about the complaints of being similar and possible infringement laws being broken, yet the client could not careless about Dave. He told Dave, that thousands of hundreds of dollars are being spent to back Kiki creator, and with this he has the power to defend himself while Dave has basically no money. He just has the sympathy of the public, which many see as the original creator of the character. Now we know that’s not enough, but sometimes it is. He was told in closing, that he has to keep fighting.

Point three:

This is a Coqui known as
the Guajon, one out of 17 types
on the island of Puerto Rico.

Kike Koki is based on a Coqui that comes from the Dorado subset on the island, yet there are over 17 different types on the island of Puerto Rico alone. Somehow, Ed Rodriguez chose the same exact Coqui species and colored the character very similar in design, when confront with this knowledge he did not change the name; give him another color design he did nothing. In fact he could have even gone out his way and given Dave co-creator rights. Yet what irks me even more. Dave’s strip had been running all over online and on El Nuevo Dia paper, and Ed supposedly had visited the island several times, shouldn’t he have known about this character? Shouldn’t he have done a check to see if there were any similar characters out there? One has to consider this seeing as the Coqui is a huge symbol to the Puerto Rican people of the island and Nyoricans, and other Puerto Rican descents for decades. So a simple search would have given Ed a heads up. Yes? No?

Point four:

Why hasn’t Ed come forward besides his wimpy excuse of stating, “There is no rip off here. Coqui frogs are golden in color (searchCoqui Dorado) and koki is the Taino spelling for coqui.”and try talking with Dave more in-depth with this issue now? Because he is engaging in cover-up tactics now?

Ed Rodriguez.

One has to consider that Ed Rodriguez knew about copyright law seeing as Ed Rodriguez has worked professionally as an artist for over 20 years, with various companies such as Disney, MGA/Little Tikes and Spin Master. Running his name through Amazon you would find quite a bit of his books through the system from various Disney books. He has worked with consumer products; he has a basic knowledge in copyright and what infringement involves. Unless he took everything he learned from Disney, which is a company we know that has infringed on other creator rights throughout the decades with various works of animation, and he figured he could take advantage of a fellow brethren?

I can’t talk about the state of mind of Ed Rodriguez of course, because who really knows his true motivations here.  Only Ed can answer these questions now, but he refuses to comment any further.