Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Copycats

Two people in chat last night were arguing.  Evidently over a bracelet. The creator of the bracelet sold it to the other woman. The other woman used the bracelet as a tutorial to make a new bracelet, which she then listed for sale on Etsy. Since she'd said up front to the vendor that she was buying the bracelet in order to make one, she can't understand why the first artisan would be angry.  The chatroom jumped all over the new girl and she said she'd take the listing down. But then she was back today saying she didn't copy it all and was going to go full steam ahead and make more. I know that happens on Etsy all the time but most people aren't that blatant about it.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

It is difficult when you're inspired by one person's work and you think "I could do that!" Normally, I look to many inspirations, before working on my own creation. But right now, there's one artisan making embroidered tassel belts that I *adore* so I haven't attempted my own... I don't want to copy HER directly. I need to find many sources, before I attempt my own belts.

There are some handspun yarns used on dolls that have inspired a friend of mine. She sends me the photos and says "Can you make something like this?" I've never copied someone else's yarn directly, but I have gotten ideas about materials I could use. I would hate to copy someone else directly, but inspiration is all around us.

But buying an item SPECIFICALLY to copy it and sell under your own name? Plagiarism, pure and simple.

Fayme Zelena Harper said...

Thanks for coming by my humble blog. I'm with you...research, gather sources, put you own twist on things, add you own soul to a piece. Then once you've worked through all the bugs and prototypes, introduce it to the world. The more the woman tries to justify her actions, the more damage she is doing to her reputation.