CBM Attacked Over Fan Art -- WB Freaking

In a bizzare sequence of events last night, we here at CBM got a "copyright infringement" notice about a photo manipulated image showing a user's idea of Tom Welling in the rumored season 9 Superman suit.

The CW/WB rep said that several legitimate news sources/websites were reporting it as "real" and that they wanted it removed. Of course, we complied. We figured it might have come too close to the real suit--showcased in a clip at last week's comic-con. When inquiring further, they told us that the image was NOTHING like the actual suit. Which we thought was kind of funny, because why then would that be a problem at all? Certainly it COULDN'T be copyright infringement.

The fake pic showed Clark/Supes in a purplish overcoat, and was an obvious photo manipulation. (HERE is the original article.)

Now, loyal readers of CBM know that while we are a breaking news site, we allow users to contribute and put their content on the front page after it has been edited for quality. We also have a very active Fan Fic section--not a news section, where users submit fan art all the time. In fact that is where this article is located. Besides us, there are literally millions of smallville related photo manipulations out there on the web and thousands of fan art fan sites.

So, imagine our surprise when we find that Kryptonsite is ripping us a new one this morning. You have to click on the "enter kryptonsite" image to get in to see the article, but we'll give you the gist below...

This has been making the rounds on the Internet today, and has been linked by several actually reputable news sources, as The CW's first official "look" at the Season 9 costume Clark will be wearing, which was first seen in the trailer shown at Comic-Con.

....Except it's not.

That image is a fan-produced manipulation, and, like one or two other "stories" created in the past week at that same website, is fraudulent.

Please spread the word on this and make sure others know that people officially with the show have confirmed that this is not for real.

Hopefully the website that hosted this image will take on some better editorial control in their fan-submitted content. Anyone can make up stories. I could say "Craig Byrne and Derek Russell are writing a story for Season 10" right now but that doesn't make it any more true.

Note: You can see the image on that Kryptonsite article if you want, albeit greatly reduced. I wonder how THEY can get away with posting it and we cannot?

Now, they don't name names, which I suppose is somewhat professional of them, but there is no doubt about who they are maligning. And it is obvious that they don't think much of our site or community--even though it is also obvious that they frequent it.

And I'm sorry, but any mentally challenged reporter who is reporting the clearly manipulated fan art as official is the one who needs to be insulted, not us.

In any case, we sent Kryptonsite a nasty email, so we'll see how they respond. But don't let this discrmination and attack frustrate you awesome CBM fan photo manipulators! Keep contributing and fight the power!

And congratulations to user TenaciousBT who's awesome art caused all the commotion.