This doesn’t have that kind of go-hard-or-go-home feel to it, though.

Frankly, this doesn’t have much of a feel to it at all. If it is a misappropriation of Rees’ style, it’s not one that gets my blood up. Arkizzle made a convincing argument that it is a misappropriation, and Rees makes a point about trade dress on his website. I am persuaded. But I don’t feel the outrage. Maybe if I make another pot of coffee…

All this talk of what’s “right” or “moral” is nauseating. “Dick moves” is a phrase custom tailored for the intellectually ineffective. To quote McLuhan, “Art is anything you can get away with.” Rees may have cause to be upset, but so do the artists whose clip art he’s used. Personally, I find the entire copyright debate useless. All art should be protected, except in clear cases of plagiarism. This is so far from being ANY kind of plagiarism, it defies all logic how any sane human – a writer, no less – could call it that.

If someone apes your style, it’s your right to complain, but be aware that others might not give the first shit. I’m not supporting Jamba Juice here, but it’s clear to me that what this particular commercial artist has done is no worse than what countless artists do every day. Also, it’s not surprising in the least.

From a legal standpoint, while Jamba has to take some heat for having approved the campaign, the liability rests on its ad agency (assuming Jamba has a standard indemnity clause in its contract). Agencies generally warrant that all work they do for their clients is *original*, and accept responsibility for defending against claims of copyright infringement (whether legitimate or not). The reason for this is that the agency is in the best position to know whether it created or ripped off an idea.

Is it possible that nobody at Jamba had ever seen GYWO? Yes, it is. It is entirely possible that Jamba approved this campaign without ever knowing that there was even a *hint* of similarity with a existing web comic.

Is it likely that Jamba’s agency independently developed this artistic approach? Hardly.

Case in point: a couple of guys pitched the idea of a talking chihuahua to Taco Bell’s agency. Then the agency presented a talking chihuahua campaign to Taco Bell. The two guys sued Taco Bell and the agency. The blame (and the sizable financial settlement) was assigned entirely to the agency. They ripped off the idea and represented it to their client as their own work.

That, in a nutshell, is the big issue here.

(Unless, of course, in the creative presentation, the agency showed Jamba the GYWO comics and said “okay, we’re going to use this style…”, in which case everyone fails the class.)

This is, as they say, not news.

GYWO is not about the art. Anybody who thought it was about the art? Sorry, it’s not.

I don’t begrudge any poor bastard advertising drone his paycheck. Everybody’s gotta eat, and there will be a new ad out tomorrow, and seriously NOBODY CARES ABOUT THIS.

It’s not just the clip-art or the balloon style, it’s the use of the whole package.

I find it hypocritical that some artists can imitate or parody others’ work, but not others, including commercial artists. Would we be so indignant if this artist used Mickey Mouse as his/her inspiration? Highly doubtful.

We wouldn’t need to, Disney’s lawyers would have seen to it.

A true “parody” would have made it more obvious in some way that the ad wasn’t actually endorsed by GYWO. Otherwise it doesn’t play as a joke, just a run of the mill endorsement.

I do understand that this is the difference of law v. plagiarism, and you’re not saying this is illegal. I should’ve been more clear. I’m saying that if Rees would’ve used his own copywritten work from the get-go, none of this would be happening because it’d be in the realm of copyright infringement. But since his stuff is free to grab for any artist, even commercial as Takeshi points out, I don’t feel for him. This whole campaign could’ve been whipped up by an intern, and the boss went ‘oh creative commons? neat!’ (Severe summation).
And, again as Takeshi points out, what of the original artists who made those clip arts that are now used for very pointed web comics?

@44
Clearly you’re on the defense. I didn’t mean to put anyone there (in a negative way at least). I should say that I can see your/Cory’s points of view. I just think that the dangers of using copyfree material seem more than apparent to me, and GYWO is beyond fair game for any type of artist. You got me on the statement released by JJ, I hadn’t read that. I could take that literally, or take it as a ‘F the whole nod thing didn’t work, nope, wasn’t parodiying, take the high road quick!’
For the record – never had a jamba juice in my life, and before this had never heard of Rees or GYWO. But I do like smoothies and quirky web comics/blogs, so maybe I should just say ‘fuck em’? Scratch my belly in a tank top, eat some cheetos, lounge on the couch watching Jerry Springer while I’m at it?

And there is the potential reverse problem that Cory mentioned as well. Undoubtedly there are many Jamba Juice customers who have never heard of David Rees or GYWO. Suppose Jamba does a whole series of ads in this style. Now suppose their customers run across GYWO for the first time. At least some of them are likely to think Rees is riffing on the Jamba ads. Some of them might think he’s got some sort of deal with Jamba.

An artist’s reputation can be injured by association with commercial interests. Would Rees have been accused of “sellnig out” by his fans? Would it have had a direct impact on his art, his income, his livelihood? Don’t know. But it’s clear to me that, even if there was no legal transgression here (and the question of trademark rights means it is not 100% clear on that count), Jamba’s use of the clip-art, dialogue style and overall look and feel created/popularized by Rees is at least ethically questionable.

Faithfully mimicking a style is a form of identity theft.

But then, imo, Jamba Juice is a crappy corporation. All through their stores they have sloganeering and products designed to make you think they give a shit about the environment and people’s health, and then they hand you your smoothie in a giant styrofoam cup.

So, you know, there you go. Don’t expect a lot of ethical decisions out of a company that pretends to care about things it clearly doesn’t actually care about.

I hate corporate co-opting myself (see: WalMart ads taking credit for their employees’ human decency) but in a case like this I have to say it cuts both ways.

Rees should probably just point out that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and that clearly they couldn’t improve on his work and by the way, could you put a disclaimer on that?

I think that’s the high road here.

Nice going, fellahs.

You are going to have to work hard to argue trade dress considering Jamba is a Juice (a food product) and GYWO is a **comic**. And there is that little problem of the fact that most of the distinctiveness of GYWO is the **clip art** that Rees is presumably licensed to use but in no way owns. Can you even register a trademark that uses IP you don’t own?

[blockquote]“For me, here’s where the asymmetry comes in: Is it OK for someone to appropriate someone else’s work and use it, without permission, knowledge, or compensation, to promote their own stuff? No.

Is it OK for someone to appropriate someone else’s work and use it, without permission, knowledge, or compensation, to make art? Yes.”[/blockquote]

Why?

You seem to imply that art isn’t a money making proposition, isn’t a business. Sure, it isn’t for everybody, but if you are going to use “art” as the differentiator rather than “commercial” then that is a highly relevant point. Are you going to propose a new CC license that specifies “art” as the only allowable use? Will you differentiate “underground” art from “fine” art? Will you say any artist who makes money is precluded? How will that work.

People seem unhappy that permissive IP works both ways, both up to commercial users and down to non commercial user. Well, that’s part of the bargain of permissive IP laws, as opposed to specific, restrictive licensing schemes like Creative Commons.

[blockquote]“So there’s no hypocrisy here. What Jamba Juice is doing is wrong.” [/blockquote]

Yes, there is hypocrisy, you just don’t see it because your hypocrisy conforms to your wold view and consider it normative.

Jamba Juice is using a good idea that, it seems, is in the common domain. They’re ‘mashing it up’ if you will for reuse in Jamba domain.

What is wrong with that? You guys constantly promote artists mashing up other artists work. So Jamba makes a profit? Is that a bad thing? If not, given that people are not likely to go into Jamba Juice thinking that GYWO is promoting it, I’m not sure I see a problem.

Good for Jamba for taking a good idea and mashing it up (they mash up decent smoothies too).

* It seems to me Rees has the perfect weapon with which to fight back: his own comic strip. It looks exactly like Jamba Juice’s ad campaign — for which Jamba Juice has no one to blame but themselves.

Maybe he should print up stickers of a “Get Your War On” panel about the corporate sins of Jamba Juice. I imagine those could get more (bad) publicity for Jamba Juice than their original ad campaign.

Meanwhile, the Jay-Z / Radiohead mashup is cause for celebration — “Git yerself some while the gittin’s good.” The difference, I imagine, is that Jaydiohead is somehow greater than the sum of its appropriated parts. It is a work of art, whereas the Jamba Juice ads are plagiarism. And what’s plagiarism, exactly? Like hard-core pornography, are we supposed to “know it when we see it”? Thank goodness we’ve got experts to tell us when to feel moral outrage and when to crank up the volume and dance.

1. That somebody at JJ (or their agency), who was a huge fan of GYWO, put the ads together as an homage.

2. Somebody in the Legal Dept. said, “Dude… you have to get the original artist’s OK. That’s totally a rip-off.”

3. They contacted Rees, who said, “It’s OK by me. But instead of putting a little, ‘Inspired by Rees’ tag at the bottom of your ads, let’s pretend you ripped me off without my knowing it.”

4. Legal guy asks, “Why?”

5. “Because we’ll both get a TON more attention that way. It’s super-ironic. It wraps up copyright, fair use, public domain and an ARG all into one. When we do the final reveal, it’ll be hysterical.”

6. Legal guy shrugs and says, “OK. We got the email from you that says, ‘It’s OK.’ Roll it!”

That would make me happy.

If that’s not the way it worked, then I agree with Cory. JJ has every right to do this, but it’s dumb. It’s also just a bad ad, anyway.