Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Visual Arts / wtf H&M thieves from EAV artist, gets caught by the Internet
Posted by Wyatt Williams @wyatt_williams on Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 10:40 AM
- REGRETSY
See any similarity between the images above? If you answered yes, that's probably because you have eyes and a functioning brain. In the latest chapter of corporate retailers stealing from Atlanta-based artists, Tori LaConsay says she painted the sign on the left in late 2008 as a sort of love letter to East Atlanta Village. She told Regretsy:
On one side of the sign, I painted, “You Look Nice Today” followed by a little heart. This was on the side of the sign that I thought people would see on their way to work. On the other side of the sign (the side I thought people would see the most on their return back to the neighborhood) I painted, “I’m So Happy You’re Here” with another little heart. It was a small gesture that I genuinely hoped would make my neighbors feel good.
Oh, god, isn't that just the sweetest thing you've ever heard? Just this week, years after LaConsay's selfless act of sign-painting, she started getting emails from friends who had seen her message again, except this time emblazoned on H&M products. The best part is what she got back from the Swedish retailer when she contacted the company about it:
“We employ an independent team of over 100 designers. We can assure you that this design has not been influenced by your work and that no copyright has been infringed.”
Since making the rounds on Regretsy and Reddit, Internet folks have banded together in LaConsay's defense across Twitter, Facebook, and other places where people get up in arms about stuff on the Internet. Which is probably why if you head to H&M's Facebook page, this is what you'll see:
Looks like that could make for a happy ending. We'll update if the story develops.
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
If its any consolation, the sign looses its whimsy once it ceases to be free art. The H&M merch looks cloyingly affected. I doubt they've sold much.
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The "i" in nice is lowercase in the H+M version. Totally different.
Same sign, EAV via a UK blog from 2010 :
http://www.onefromthevaults.co.uk/2010/08/…
Moe's comment reminds me of that time Vanilla Ice tried to defend stealing the Under Pressure beat from Queen in Ice Ice Baby, but saying that one note was changed, so it was totally different. I'm DYING over here.
unless the artist filed a copyright on the art work with the US Gov. she is out of luck. If copyright was filed, prior to the infringement the the artist would be in a very different situation. Most artists/people believe, erroneously, that just because they made it, slapped their name a c in a circle and a date they will receive the full benefit of the law and that is far from the fact. At the very least it will cost $20K to bring it to court with an uncertain outcome and the only potential amount that could be rewarded is for loss or damages = which in this instance would be $0, as the art was viewed by many at no cost and so the damages would likely be nil.
The artist would receive a favorable outcome in court, but the rewards are moral, not monetary. Most of the time a moral victory leaves you hungry and Georgia Power still wants their money...
Seems like a perfect case for Georgia Lawyers for the Arts. They help artists (who usually can't afford lawyers) with just this kind of copyright issue. http://www.glarts.org/
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