Nerd is my Gender
What's yours?
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The Cancer that is killing Etsy
Genuine artists are being pushed around while frauds are let free:
Usually, I take a lot of pleasure in laughing at Etsy’s bullshit. But this just makes me sad. Here’s a genuine artisan playing by the rules, doing everything right, working to uphold the dream that Etsy sold her, and she’s the one getting punished.
Someone asked me recently what it would take to solve the reseller problem on Etsy. And I said, “It would have to matter to them.” And it doesn’t. All that really matters is that you’re nice to everyone, even to the people who are undercutting your business and cheating you out of sale after sale. Because it’s much easier for Etsy to make millions of dollars on factory produced goods if you don’t embarrass them and demand accountability.
At some point, people are going to realize that Etsy is the new Wal-Mart. It’s just like any other profit driven corporation, stocking their shelves with products created by people who are barely earning a living wage.
Except at Etsy, the person making pennies an hour is you.
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Urban Outrage
It’s like they say: everything is a remix (or stolen, depending on how you look at it).
By now you have probably read this story about Urban Outfitters allegedly ripping off an Etsy artist’s necklace designs.
As you know, I love this kind of thing. Nothing gets me more excited than busting someone who rips off an independent designer and tries to profit from their thievery. Extra special drama points if the thief is also a douchebag.
I’ve mainly limited my rage to Etsy artists ripping off other Etsy artists, but I’ve also been seeing an increase in the amount of made-to-look-handmade shit being hawked at hipster meccas like Anthropologie. So the fact that the handmade aesthetic has been seeping into the marketplace like a toxic mold has not gone unnoticed.
But there was something about this story that just wasn’t gelling for me. I tried to write it up several times yesterday, egged on by a persistent stream of email and tweets from outraged readers, begging for the Regretsy Thugs to put the smackdown on Urban Outfitters. I just couldn’t pull the trigger.
It’s not that the evidence wasn’t compelling.
That’s pretty damning. But what part of the design is proprietary? The shape of a state or country isn’t really something anyone can lay claim to. So you’d have to conclude that it’s the addition of the heart that makes it her design.
And that’s where this starts getting complicated.
Truche sold her first state pendant on Etsy in 2009.
Sudlow on Etsy sold a similar pendant in 2008.
So is it really Sudow’s design?
Or did they both rip off James Avery, who was selling a similar design at least seven months earlier?
Before you answer, here are more Etsy sellers selling similar designs they claim as their own creation.
Click on images for larger view and store link
Are all of these independent designers on Etsy stealing from each other? Or this is such a simple and generic idea that many people can come up with it at once? Certainly the idea of a charm in the shape of a state is nothing new; they’ve been selling those to tourists for years. Is it such a leap to put a heart in one? That seems like a logical progression from the I heart NY design, which I first remember seeing in the late 70′s.
Now, I’m not generally the voice of reason, so this is an uncomfortable position to take. But I’m just not sure I want to start a boycott over an idea that many people have had, some for years before Truche even opened her Etsy store.
I’m not saying that Urban Outfitters doesn’t help themselves to the designs of others. They certainly have a record of pilfering designs, and they may very well have stolen this one. The question, for me at least, is who did they steal it from? And if we don’t know that much, how do we know it’s really been stolen at all?
Something to think about before you get the pitchforks out.
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Roseart v. Crayola: the Sun Test
Pretty.
And sciency!
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77. I don’t understand your art if it isn’t beautiful.
The problem is using “understand” and “art” in the same sentence.
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I’ve seen this in person - the candy was actually quite tasty.
Untitled (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) - Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 1991
From the Art Institute of Chicago:
Felix Gonzalez-Torres produced work of uncompromising beauty and simplicity, transforming the everyday into profound meditations on love and loss. “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is an allegorical representation of the artist’s partner, Ross Laycock, who died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991. The installation is comprised of 175 pounds of candy, corresponding to Ross’s ideal body weight. Viewers are encouraged to take a piece of candy, and the diminishing amount parallels Ross’s weight loss and suffering prior to his death. Gonzalez-Torres stipulated that the pile should be continuously replenished, thus metaphorically granting perpetual life.
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Banksy on Advertising
“People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are “The Advertisers” and they are laughing at you.
You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.
You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.”
~ Banksy(Source: elledark)
Genderqueer with a touch of happy humanism.
