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Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Art Theft

Last weekend I found out that a friend's art had been stolen by another area artist. Something that is often hard to prevent, especially in this day of social media. However this was done the old fashioned way. The fibre artist's piece had been sold years ago, the culprit removed the sewn on signature and posted  it on her website for sale.

In the process of emails between various artists, it turned out there were pieces of art from other artist's work that she also represented as her own, fibre, stained class and paintings.  She had been banned already from one painting instructors class for copying the teachers work. When accused the artist offered up various excuses but finally under pressure she closed her website, supposedly remove all offending pieces and opened a new site. She was also removed from one gallery that she exhibited at.

 


Hard to believe that anyone is so naïve as not to be aware of COPYRIGHT. On a larger scale I have since heard from another artist about a company that stole a painter's image and printed it on thousands of t-shirts in China.

As most artists cannot afford  to pay for copyright on every piece they produce and going to court is another; my suggestions.....document, document, document and whenever possible add watermarks.



2 comments:

Unknown said...

Having been ripped off numerous times for works I created in the past and recently, and having tried to pursue it legally only to find out the cost to do so was prohibitive, I can only comment that us small time artists are vulnerable and there is truly not much that can be done about it. If it were a Koons, different story! I am always creating new works, which does keep me one step ahead of the ripoff game. However, it doesn't reduce the sting of seeing your idea get copied or used as someone else's, ESPECIALLY when they get featured on magazines, get accepted into exhibitions, etc. with work that is yours, which has been the case with my work. I have tried to talk with the offending artists and have been met with haughty disregard. I have complained to the huge national art group that published another artist's work that was a rip off of mine (I had sent her images for a show she was curating, she copied the works and then used them as her own) and been told to be flattered that someone is "inspired" by me. Ostriches. I have given up and just go on making new work and ignore these offenses. That is the world today and another crappy indignity us artists have to contend with.

Sue M said...

Unbelievable! Some people - such a shame!