Urban Outfitters and Etsy Artists: Who's Stealing From Whom?

As an artist, I'm tired of being ripped off because it hampers my creativity. It takes away your freedom as well as well as your income. I have payed to send my work to galleries, was rejected and then saw work that was the spitting image of mine come out a year later. Be aware that when you send work out...anywhere...they will keep it, add it to image "banks", copy it, or give it to there friends to copy. This is the truth. I have read that when you sign a work that is your copyright and more people should pursue that in a court of law. I have heard complaints from people like on Etsy that someone copyied their work, but the work was very generic and easy to copy. Now when I sell something, I make it as original and hard to copy as possible. I really work at making unique items that are so complicated that it wouldn't be worth ripping off, and guess what...they don't sell too well.Guess I'll have to starve.

This chain of dumps is part-owned by Rick Santorum, the frothy-poop-lube mixture man.  No low class rip off is beneath them.

There's a lot of cannabilism within Etsy. Sellers stealing from other sellers. That happens at a much more rapid rate, but in terms of volume sold I don't know if it could match a big retailer. 

If your stuff isn't that original (state silhouette and heart) and can't be copyrighted, maybe go for something you can copyright because you're really only mashing up something else you stole, anyway. 

With this stuff, it's a zeitgeist, folks. there's no original copyright.

I'm not saying Urban Outfitters or people they buy from for their stores have ripped people off, I feel that it goes the other way, too. Urban Outfitters has gotten ripped off a lot, too.

I know for a fact that Etsy artists are ripping off one another. I just had a good friend who had this experience and it was pretty ugly.

A generic design such as that is very difficult to own and police.  No one can own the shape of a state and a heart in it. It's too vague, where the heart is placed, how big it is, what material etc all play into how a product can be protected. Designers sometimes do not understand that simply making something doesn't mean they own it. If I come up with a product that is generic, I should predict that it will be ripped off.

While I understand this point of view, it's a little like saying that because everyone can write words, no set of words is totally unique therefore copyright does not exist.

Copyright law, as I understand it, protects not ideas, but executions of ideas. It doesn't matter that a thousand people have thought of a thing. The person who makes the idea reality first holds the copyright. 

If Etsy artists steal from one another -- and I'm sure that they do -- they should be prepared to face the consequences. Many times, the consequences are to simply stop producing copied works, but I think having to compensate the artist who originated the work is completely fair.

When a well-capitalized, global company like Urban Outfitters resorts to theft of ideas rather than from investment in creative designers, they most certainly should pay a price above and beyond simple revenue loss. Without penalty, Urban Outfitters can simply go from stolen design to stolen design never feeling the pain that they inflict upon others. 

Most independent designers would be thrilled to sell their designs or to be paid a royalty so why doesn't Urban Outfitters simply ask? 

As most craftspeople and artists know, ideas are easy: It's marketing that takes all the effort. 

The real damage that Urban Outfitters and others who steal designs do is to remove an independent artist's tiny marketing edge in a very competitive marketplace. 

Sure, ripping off a design is no big deal in the cutthroat business world, but if the bulk of my income is from that design, your unethical behavior, even if legal, has put me in the poorhouse. I get it though, you're big, I'm small, and you don't care about me. 

Doing well by doing good is a far better long-term business strategy than doing well by screwing people over. Unfortunately, that doesn't matter to those with deep pockets and shallow morals who can feed themselves whether or not they behave ethically.