There has been some recent hoopla on the net regarding
an artist who went public about several of her designs being copied (and it
seems like they were) by a well known gift supplier. Any number of bloggers
have posted their admiration and support for her bravery, and some big
retailers actually cut ties with the gift supplier because of it. But there is a fly in the
ointment – an art critic matched up the designs to several photographs widely available
on the net, and they do match. Perfectly. And now people are researching her
past work and matching some of that up to other photos…oops…
There is no future in maintaining a "poor artists against the mean manufacturers" attitude, it will very quickly poison your relationships and ultimately your career. Here at Two Town we truly like the vast majority of the companies and people we work with and can count many good friends among them, and it seems I find myself advocating consideration of the licensee side of things far too often because many artists automatically jump to the “manufacturers are bad” side of things. Yes, infringements do occur but the truth is you are way more likely to be ripped off by another artist than by a potential licensee.
There is a lesson to be learned here, and it's an unpalatable one - in this biz of art and product licensing sometimes it IS all about the money, and that fact will pop up on either side of the equation. It can lead to hard knocks for sure, but you can usually duck them if you stay original, do your research, write good contracts and use your smarts.
The best commentary on the issue I've read so far, well said Jim. I think we have to be careful about what we say on the internet, it too often seems the easy way to call someone out, but as we all learned in this situation it backfired and the repercussions for the artist and manufacturer(s) could potentially be damning for all involved. A lesson for all of us to learn.
ReplyDeleteSome more damning evidence: http://thomasallenonline.com/2013/11/13/copycat/
ReplyDelete