The other big difference is that of reactions. The RIAA method of suing the customer is a bad reaction. The method covered here, that of supporting the originator and shaming the duplicator, is a good reaction. You both raise up the creative person and smack down the plagiarist.

If Jenny had filed DMCA take down notices and sued the people that bought from Urban Threads, we would be reading a very different post.

Eh, personally I don’t have an issue with it. The “copies” are generic enough. The line between inspiration and copy is blurry. I error on the side of inspiration. If someone is taking every design you make, re-visioning it, and trying to sell it, you are probably onto something and have the advantage of being first. Hell, it is probably a marketing point. Nothing like pointing out that you are the original and everyone else are just posers to score a few hipster points.

Shit! I suppose punk’s really dead now.

P.S.: As for punk roots, I will submit Stiff Little Fingers.

Shepard Fairey’s Obama poster vs. the AP’s reference photo.

The reference photo is a photo. The poster isn’t a photo. The things above are all embroidery designs.

#82 Tdawwg

McClaren definitely wasn’t a ‘founder’ of British punk.

Sniffin’ Glue magazine was central to it from early on, but it basically just happened in a small way in London, then went off the Richter scale after the famous Bill Grundy tv interview.

Would it be punk to have an embroidery design that just said “Urban thread are no talent hax”?

I have to say I don’t agree that suing would be the wrong thing. If it is true the 2nd company really did take copyrighted designs, tweak them a tiny bit and sell them at a profit; then I’d say they should have to compensate the original designer.

It’s DIY and crafts.

Actually, I bet “DIY” is a relatively new term too. You probably sold a book or TV show more easily in the 80s if you called it DIY instead of woodwork. Presumably it was wood(and metal)work before “DIY”. Or carpentry?

So maybe I should stop complaining about the normal process of change in language.

The spacegirl, X-Mas ornaments and woman/dog are riffs on 1940-50′s era advertising – I hand-drew something very similar to the spacegirl about 9 years ago for a website I was designing at the time, specifically going for a retro-future look/feel. That said, I have no idea if the original images from print material are in public domain by now, or if copyright even applies to ads; I was comfortable that I was creating original work inspired by retro advertising rather than infringing somebody else’s copyright. As for the heart, Urban Thread’s version looks just like study/test materials commonly handed out in Anatomy & Physiology classes – label the different wobbly bits of the human heart, etc. Not sure if that specific version of the illustration is under copyright, but if so and Urban Threads didn’t pay for use of same, then any violation on their part would be against the actual owner of the illustration, not against the substantially different rendition of the human heart as produced by Sublime Stitching.

I don’t know if there are other issues indie crafters have with Urban Threads, but these examples don’t do much bolster the argument for copyright violation.

Also, while I agree that a woman and a dog, and the ornaments all look Kitschy 1950′s, I think the angles, spacial placing, the stance of the characters (poses and positions)are too close to be just artistic coincidence. When these similarities show up in group after group of designs: hello copyright troll.

if so, it would explain off a lot of the seemingly seedy practices, but not excuse purported plagiarism.

http://www.topatoco.com/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=TO&Category_Code=EXD

http://www.sharingmachine.com/index.php?comic=nd

The ExDog work predates miss Dee’s by several years and the actual character expressions and color palette seem beyond coincidence.

Ideally, art and style should enjoy an open arena. But emulating another individuals product so closely is another subject altogether. Attempting to horn in on an independent artist’s sales in such a way is downright rude and should be considered a shameful act.

Swipin’ is swipin’.
You can gussy it up all ya want, but if you don’t clear the rights, you know, I know and everyone else knows its swipin’.

Ooh. A run-on sentence. Awkward, but suits the form.

Great quote. Mind if I use it?

Everything you love, everything meaningful with depth and history, all passionate authentic experiences will be appropriated, mishandled, watered down, cheapened, repackaged, marketed and sold to the people you hate.

Hmmm, think I saw that on a Shepherd Fairey poster somewhere!

Second, As a designer, I’m often handed other peoples work and I’m asked to make it ‘the same but different’ all the time. (Urban Outfitters is a major guilty party, and ex-client of mine)

Inspiration is a hard target to nail. The designs are similar, and obviously inspired, but outright theft? I think not. For recent reference, check Shepard Fairey’s Obama poster vs. the AP’s reference photo.

It’s up to the consumer to know the difference from the true underground vs. the corporate copy. Most consumers don’t care, and buy whatever they find first at the Gap.

Maybe American punk would work better, as it came first, but they all wanted to be Elvis, anyway. The New York Dolls were super hot, but about as authentic as any of us wearing Maoist costumes and screaming atonally.

I am not going to participate in the numerous online discussions about this issue, but I wanted to make one comment here as boingboing readers may be less familiar with my company than those in the DIY community.

Sublime Stitching is not a big company going after a smaller company. Embroidery Library Inc. dba Urban Threads is an established, digital stock-art company. We feel Sublime Stitching is being unfairly targeted by Embroidery Library Inc using willfully deceptive marketing and unfair competition in numerous ways that go far beyond just a few, poorly copied designs being shown as an example. Each one taken out of context, sure, they don’t seem so bad. But the hairs that are being split come from a full head of hairs that are not being considered in this discussion.

I also want to be sure people understand that there is extensive material, not being revealed publicly, that we feel shows a consistent, calculated pattern of actions by Embroidery Library Inc dba Urban Threads of deliberately targeting my business, creating confusion in the marketplace, repeating my quotes made in the press, instructions from my books, blog content, web functionality, and going after our customers with a deceptive front as an indie business run by “one gal” which is instead owned and fully funded, quietly, by a larger, stock art company.

Sublime Stitching was begun in 2001 on a loan of $1,000. from my late father, and has never been backed by another company. It has taken me eight years to build my catalog of embroidery designs, and every other aspect of my company: the mission, the logo, the website, the designs, the products, the content, advertisements, packaging -myself. Not with a company and team of people funding and helping. Alone. I freaking hand-coded my entire site in html for the first five years with no guis.

The whole picture is not easily consumed with a quick glance at their website.

I am very happy that this inspires so much discussion about copyright, but dismayed when there is misinformation forming the basis of the discussion.

This is the only comment I will be making online about this matter until it is appropriate to do so.

And THANK YOU for the support!

If I were Sublime Stitching, I’d say “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” here and move on. Anyone that is in the business of selling clip art or recipes or foley or stock footage or loop libraries would drive themselves crazy if they got riled up about every competitor’s small clip that looked/sounded/tasted a little like theirs. Every moment spent fuming about this is a moment that could have been designing the next great embroidery pattern that will leave your competitors struggling to catch up.

Couching this in an extended metaphor about punk authenticity is just bizarre. I can’t imagine too many punk bands got mad because another band’s 3 chords sounded rather similar to their 3 chords. Whatever “Real Punk” may have been about, it wasn’t about that kind of squabble.

The Sublime Stitching girls are -way- hotter, by the way.

They certainly seem to be less wasp-waisted, and have bigger ladybumps.