Did Nissan (or their ad agency) rip off cut-paper-map artist and Etsy-er Karen O'Leary? (UPDATED)

I'm no lawyer, and I'm no detective, but there are some unmissable similarities between this ad campaign by Nissan and Lew'Lara/TBWA, Brazil (above) and the long-established body of work from artist Karen O'Leary (left).

O'Leary's Etsy site is here, more of her images here. We've featured her beautiful and unique cut paper city maps on Boing Boing a number of times, and they've been featured at lots of other design and art blogs around the web. She's been doing them since at least 2004, by my count, but her work really received a big popularity boost and sort of went viral in late 2009-early 2010. No, she's not the only artist in the world who uses cut paper as a medium, but give me a break.

Above, the Nissan campaign, detailed here at Ads of the World. Inset at left, one of Karen's most recent maps: Paris (there's even a Paris map in the Nissan campaign). Many details, down to the white paper, the way O'Leary frames each piece, the way she photographs her pieces by having someone hold them, are disappointingly similar. I reached out to Nissan and the ad agency in Brazil several times over the past week about the matter, and not one person has responded. Double-dog-lame, guys.

UPDATE, March 24: Lucila Pougy, a public relations spokesperson for Lew´Lara\TBWA in Brazil, emails Boing Boing: "We had no knowledge of Karen´s work or blog. It is impossible to know every work of every person on the internet. Upon learning about the coincidence, we immediately got in touch with her. Thank you."

Previously:

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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Maximillian

Another Paper Cut Map maker: http://www.famillesummerbelle.com/prod_maps.html

Maybe it’s not a big deal that a bunch of people like the style and used it in an ad campaign? Maybe?
Church

Hey, I put characters on screens in the eighties. You all are ripping me off…
weatherman

I wish BB would espouse a consistent position about these sorts of things. It seems every time there is a “little” artist who is mimicked by some corporation, it’s a rip-off/copyright infringement that should be settled by a lawsuit, but when it’s a corporation that is copied by a lesser known (or just more trendy) artist, it’s always portrayed as fair use. Look at the examples here lambasting companies like Sony or Paperchase, or on the other side defending the likes Shepard Fairey. Heck, even Cory’s Little Brother is derivative of a copyrighted work.

I’m not saying that the corporations or right, or that folks like Cory or Shepard are in the wrong (legally or morally) but I am saying that there should be some consistency in the way that these things are viewed here, otherwise it just seems like it’s not a principled stance against overbroad copyright laws, and is instead just a knee-jerk against businesses.
jackdavinci

The term “rip off” seriously needs to be retired. Cut-paper is not content, it’s a medium. No one owns ideas, just execution.
Anonymous

Just for the record…

Nina Katchedourian has been doing these type of cut-out maps for over a decade.

In addition, even if they were “inspired” by Karen O’Leary, (which they likely were… Creatives at ad agencies “borrow” things all the time. Just like artists.) it’s probably a common-enough paper cut-out that I don’t think anyone can “own” it. It’s called “decoupage”, and it’s an ancient practice.

http://www.designboom.com/tools/WPro/images/blog13/map3.jpg
arkizzle / Moderator

You calling me a geek?
Anonymous

I don’t think there is much originality in this type of artwork. Architecture and urban planning students produce diagrammatic models like this quite frequently… and with the advent of laser cutters, hand cutting seems like a waste of time. Having recently finished graduate school, I can say that during my six years of arch. school… I’ve probably produced a site model/plan like this about 5 or 6 times.
Anonymous

This has similarities to a case in South Africa where BMW settled out of court after ripping off a local artist’s style – also involving maps, though a different technique.

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-10-08-artist-gets-settlement-from-bmw-sa-over-advert

It is not hypocritical to defend the right to appropriate in some circumstances and not others. We shouldn’t be afraid to make value judgements about who is involved, how it is done, and for what purpose.
revjaydub

Another artist who dissects maps:
http://www.jeffwoodbury.com/gall/gal.cfm?pgid=dissectedmaps
dolo54

“Good artists copy, great artists steal.” Intellectual Property has as much credence as we give it, like money, symbols or language. As an artist I’m not sure I’ve ever had an entirely original thought. I’m quite sure I’ve been “inspired” by many others that came before.
thequickbrownfox

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_Artists_Rights_Act
- Bill Barth
  
  If Wikipedia is accurate, then I can’t see how VARA applies to this process. O’Leary cleary didn’t make the laser-cut maps that Nissan is giving away, so there’s no danger of misattribution or destruction of her work.
Anonymous

Now here Grey (London) truly do rip off artist Simon Faithfull in the Toshiba space ballon advert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efmL3W2dPjk
aldous

A few years ago the architect Lebbeus Woods sued the producers of “12 Monkeys” for including a design element in their film (an interrogation chair) that was clearly lifted from Woods’ published illustrations. He wasn’t claiming he invented the first chair ever sat upon in the history of mankind (which some people seem to think is a necessary condition in order to claim a design as one’s own). Woods was claiming that someone stole his idea for a new version of one. Woods won (the producers settled).

Lebbeus Woods is a reasonably well-known architect and academic; he has lawyers, and some cultural juice. The film producers (their lawyers, actually) knew Woods could make a case for theft (yes, people, that’s what it is) so they copped to ‘unintentional appropriation’ and settled out of court.

Karen is just an artist on Etsy. And having worked among lazy, cynical advertising ‘creatives’, I can guarantee that they saw Karen’s work and ripped it off for their ad campaign to bring a little [misappropriated] art and soul to their soulless enterprise. But first, they took it to their lawyers, who assured them that it was ‘perfectly legal’…

…using the arguments outlined by all you callous assh*les pooh-poohing Karen’s claim in the previous comments. And so the ad agency was paid very well for their ‘work’.

That this happens all the time isn’t surprising; what is surprising is the number of comments suggesting that cultural theft by commercial interests is ok because it happens all the time. ‘Legality’ is not society’s sole standard of behavior – unless that society is a police state.

What’s most interesting is BB’s hazy ethical stance in the admittedly hazy area of copyright, ownership and originality in any artistic endeavor. If the design had originated with the ad agency and Karen O’Leary had hung a Nissan poster in a gallery and claimed it as her own, would BB jump to the agency’s defense?

When physicists want to denigrate a controversial theory they say it’s “not even wrong”, which is kind of how I feel about any suggestion that advertising is art, bad or otherwise.

Advertising is just scummy.
- Michael_GR
  
  Aldous: I believe thre is a difference, if not of principle, at least of degree, between this case and the Lebbeus Woods case. The degree is in the specificity of the design. In the map case, you could sum the “lifted” elements as “White map of city with the non-road elements cut away”. It’s more conceptual or stylistic than lifting a specific design. Were O’Leary to design her own city, and were Nissan to steal her fictional city design, it would be a different case. Now, with Lebbeus Woods, I’ts a very specific design: A seat made of thin plates, attached to a wall in a specific way, with a sphere mounted on some sort of articulated arm facing the chair. I remember seeing the movie for the first tie and almost screaming “It’s Lebbeus Woods!” in the theater. I was a huge Lebbeus Woods fan at the time (still am), and it wasn’t the style that was recognizable (it was a movie, adter all – the drawing was, I think, made with crayons), it was the specific design.
  Lastly, I don’t think Woods can be described as a big shot architect with access to high profile lawyers: he’s more of an artist and a theoretician than an active architect.
- Tzctlp
  
  You say they settled.
  
  That does not mean that the chair designer you mention won, just that the people opossite thought it was more expedient to settle rather than to go through judgement.
  
  Unless they explicitly accepted that they ripped off something or that they commited copyright infringment (look, I don’t care how much you want it to be theft, it simply isn’t) then you can’t claim what you are claiming.
Church

Stop dressing like me!
Anonymous

Art should be public, not private, what people do with art, no matter how good, bad, or mass produced, is just art. Duchamp turned a toilet on its side and created a piece of art. No matter how much I disagree with it, it is art. Ad campaigns ‘rip off’ everybody all the time, but so do artists. Just let bygones be bygones, and appreciate that this art form of paper cutting has made it to the masses. Now we can create something new.
Bill Barth

Here’s the thing I don’t understand, there are plenty of commenters who are willing to subject themselves to libel litigation by “guarantee[ing]” that this agency in Brazil “stole” this style from an Etsy artist. Unless you were at the agency when this design was created, it’s probably not worth declaring to the world that they’ve committed some sort of legal or moral crime. If O’Leary feels that her work has been infringed, it’s up to her to make the case in court and the court of public opinion.

Several others have pointed out that many other artists have been doing paper-cut maps for many years in styles very similar to this. Asserting that you know for sure that Nissan’s ad agency stole from one particular paper-cutting-map artist is reckless.

Finally, the agency in Brazil isn’t obliged to respond to a tech journalist’s accusations of a potential legal problem. I certainly wouldn’t
Modern Jess

Was the artist’s copyright violated? Doubtful, since it wasn’t a literal copy, just an appropriation of the idea. Did the artist have a patent on the idea? Doubtful again, since there is a rich body of prior art in existence. Did the ad agency sneak into the artist’s studio and physically remove one of her pieces of art? Doesn’t seem like it.

So I’m a bit lost here. What was stolen, exactly?
me3dia

So… how many more examples of prior art need to be posted before nobody says “it’s a ripoff” again?

Just because Karen O’Leary’s iteration of this well-established concept “went viral” doesn’t mean she now has exclusive license over it and all subsequent iterations are a ripoff.
Dewi Morgan

An artist does deserve credit for creating a medium, or a mode: but not scrawled across every derivative work. Credit is given by critics. Credits at the bottom of the posters should be limited to the names of the artist, and of the photographer, and possibly information on the medium (type of cardstock, type of camera). The artist’s influences, many or few, should be absent. The photographer’s influences, many or few, should also be absent.

Nobody puts “inspired by Pollack” by their signature on a painting made of paint splotches. But the critics will say “comparable to Pollack at his most uninspired!” or something.

Good remixers give credit, and credit from a large org like this could mean a huge boost to an artists income. But this is not even a remix, so I see no requirement, *even a moral one* for them to credit in this case: it’s not her work.
Anonymous

I disagree. There is an obvious similarity, but this type of artwork hasn’t been patented, has it? I know it sounds retarded but think about it, if you’re going to get technical about this, then why not consider that this “stolen” idea doesn’t even have a copyright yet. Does it? And from when on did creative originality matter? People are always striving to be different and are aimlessly searching for the next big thing, but honestly, it is all based off the same stuff. Besides, the virtue of art is not merely based on the idea of who made it first and so on, but on the merit each individual artist puts through his/her creative expression. If not then all cubist artist, including Picasso, would be considered “phonies.”

Lastly, the artist should feel happy to know that he is getting more exposure.

PS: I’m working towards a BFA. These are just my views on the subject.
Zadaz

This is already 4th generation derivative content anyway. As mentioned above, no one is crediting the original map makers anywhere, who obviously had a lot more work creating an orginal map than simply cutting one out.

But of course maps are derivative works, taking the centuries of work by individuals and municipalities to create networks of roads, buildings, and landmarks, and stripping it down to a few lines and words on paper. I’ve just looked through the fine print on a number of maps that I own and none of them even credits the city for anything.

And does a “no response” from a Brazilian design firm really say anything? They could probably care less about a “media” request from some foreign blog. ‘BoingBoing? Who are they? Never heard of ‘em, into the trash.’ I’ve made similar decisions when dealing with requests from foreign media only to realize later that someone I had never heard of is Big Stuff in another country.
- robulus
  
  Yeah, because the Bauhaus didn’t contribute anything to furniture design. Chairs have been around FOR EVER.
Anonymous

Sorry, but I see no evidence at all that they stole this “style” (which apparently was not copyrighted anyway) from this artist. It’s clearly similar, but I’ve seen similar things for years. And the fact that Paris is in the series is a smoking gun? Cripes. Paris is kind of famous, you know…perhaps it’s not so astonishing that Nissan would use it in a campaign.

I mean, for crying out loud, Keran’s using copyrighted maps to do her thing and you don’t see the mapmakers going after her. Of course now that this has been brought up on BB, maybe they will now.

The agency used an idea one of their designers probably saw in college and built a reasonably neat-looking campaign around it. And to complain about the language being vapid? It’s advertising…and the tech that allowed them to do the cut-outs is exactly the same tech that lets them design and build cars more efficiantly than in the old days, which is a perfectly valid thing to put in an ad.

I think what many are mad about is that a horrible greedy multinational company is doing it, so they MUST have stolen it from some poor innocent starving artist.
thepixelpuncher

Paper cutting is an medium

It’s not a “rip-off”. If Karen made her beautiful hand cut cities for another car company let’s say Mazda and Nissan came and did the same thing, or if Karen had consulted with Nissan and they used her idea then I would say you had some merit to the claim.

This is actually some good publicity for her I bet she might sell a few more posters.
- robulus
  
  This is actually some good publicity for her I bet she might sell a few more posters.
  
  Yes, now that Nissan has mass produced posters that use her distinctive form people will be clamouring to buy her limited editions, especially once they get her contact details off the Nissan website.
  
  Great point you make.
Modern Jess

You know, having just read all these comments, the hypocrisy on display here is astounding. BoingBoing regularly celebrates remixing, mash-ups, riffing, and fair use. Even if the corporation in question appropriated from the artist (and I’m not at all convinced that they did) then the condemnation here is very much against the grain of the values that BoingBoing regularly espouses.

You can agree or disagree with those values, but to apply them selectively is simply hypocritical.
Anonymous

The real question is whether or not she ripped off the map data used to create the map cutouts. I’m sure Navtech and Teleatlas will be looking for their fake roads to determine whether or not they were stolen from.
- Anonymous
  
  It’s as simple as this sometimes:
  
  http://www.flickr.com/photos/studiokmo/4421023006/sizes/l/
liatach

While I think it is obvious where they got the idea.
You cannot patent an idea.
Anonymous

This is not something that started with O’Leary this type of diagramming called figure/ground has been around as long as architecture and master planning. It would be like saying that someone stole the concept for a building elevation from someone else.
Anonymous

“I think what many are mad about is that a horrible greedy multinational company is doing it, so they MUST have stolen it from some poor innocent starving artist.”

yeh, nissan should give her some money (or a car) for coming up with the concept.. Agencies steal great ideas all the time, that is why there are so many assholes in advertising..
Anonymous

Yes, yes they did.
Anonymous

kind of like when Pepsi ripped off “Sour”
Genn

Ooops! I made tea this morning to drink it while reading comments. Bunch of guys in Nissan ripped me off! I demand credits!
Anonymous

SOOOOOOOO weak.
Boba Fett Diop

Many Bothans died to bring us this marketing campaign.
narrowstreetsLA

Bad artists copy. Advertising is bad art.
hep cat

Seems just as derivative of Jim Pomeroy’s “Clear Bulbs Cast Sharp Shadows” in 1987. He used a one of those clear shower curtains with a map printed on it as I recall.
Of course Indoneasian puppetry figures (yes a pun) in this as well.
cosmorphis

Everybody copies everybody. Nothing new.
thequickbrownfox

It is not a “well-established concept” in Art History, there is no School of Street Map Delineation.

The artist need not apply for patent protection anymore than other artist.

Her “riffs” are being ripped-off, visual riffs to be sure, but they are not being “quoted” or “referenced” or any other given Post-Modern excuse.

They are just ripping her off.
- Anonymous
  
  Everyone needs to apply for patent protection; it is only copyright that is granted automatically.
  
  Also, with regards to Tom Waits soundalikes, you are confusing rights of personality, which are highly variable between states but basically exist to protect an individual’s likeness from unauthorised exploitation. Tom Waits’ voice is protected under such a scheme, but an artist’s physical output would not be.
  
  VARA is also irrelevant to this discussion for reasons outlined in by Bill Barth
Anonymous

Nissan did no wrong here, IMHO, in spite of my knee jerk reaction to the idea of a large corporation pinching on someone else. I think that city maps are fair game, and the technique (laser cutting paper? – assumption) is not particularly original, is it? I am not knocking the work – it is beautiful, and tedious no doubt. But…If the artist chose to do Washington D.C. would she then owe something to the descendants of Pierre L’Enfant?

I do not doubt that the artist has been doing this since 2004, however, I know people who were doing similar if not the exact thing in Architecture school in the same timeframe (coincidental to the purchase of the laser cutter…a logical step for arch design nerds to take I guess). There are no original ideas…
kattw

I dunno. I mean, cut paper art has been around for a long time, both using real space or negative space. Similar argument can be made about shadowcasters. And cars and streets do kind of go together. I’d argue that, unless one of those cities matches one of hers pretty exactly, and they just threw their stamp on it, they may well never even have heard of her.
Trent Hawkins

Shannon Rankin seems to do this too as well as many others. This is not a unique style.
apoxia

On the ad it states:

“To communicate the pleasure of driving a Nissan, cut-out posters with maps of Barcelona, Brasilia and Paris streets were designed.”

What does that even mean? How does a map communicate the pleasure of driving a particular brand of car, or any car for that matter? I would guess someone at Nissan saw the art, and tried to come up with some ad campaign to exploit it. It’s a lame ad. It seems disjointed, not the result of an organic process of a good idea coupled with a good gimmick.

Lame Nissan, lame. I hope you end up giving credit (and hopefully money) where credit is due.
Galoot

No. And I can’t believe I’m reading this on a blog that celebrates the sharing of ideas. Ptui.
Anonymous

Figure/ground maps are a standard design tool, diagrammatic exercise. No foul here…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giambattista_Nolli

The artist stole from Nolli.

All ‘art’ is derivative.
hadlock

I don’t know, maybe we should consult David Pescovitz?

http://boingboing.net/2007/05/03/fly-swatter-map-of-m.html
oscar

I’m sorry, but there’s nothing original about that method of poster display. That said, this campaign is clearly a shameful ripoff.
Anonymous

paper cutting is a tradition japanese art too… its nothing new or original at all. In my opinion, the japanese artist’s paper artworks are a lot more detailed and intricate compared to these maps of cities…
elondaits

I can’t believe I’m reading this here…

… It certainly isn’t a copyright violation, since the technique/idea might be the same but the works themselves are completely different. It could be a potential patent violation, though… but even if the artist could get a patent for this idea, which I doubt, that’d be the kind of thing I’d normally expect to be bashed in this blog.

… I don’t think this kind of idea should be able to get legal protection and by the same logic, I don’t consider it immoral to build from it.
Stooge

Xeni, of the “many” details you found disappointingly similar, you specified only three.

One of these was the revelation that both artist and agency had used white paper.

I’d like to know what didn’t make it into your top three because it was beaten by that smoking gun.
a1579

And I bet they made it with a laser cutter, no love :(
wylkyn

It’s an homage!

To mangle a quote from Stardust Memories:
So would you say this was an homage to Vincent Price’s “House of Wax”?

No, we just stole it outright!

Or something like that…
Canadian

I’m not really convinced that this is a rip off.

I think white is a natural colour choice in this situation. If by frames you mean the white border, well that’s sort of necessary for the image to even work. As for holding the print, that is how all prints are held for photos.

I don’t know, I think it’s a pretty weak argument for rip off. It just seems like the type of idea that could sprout up more then once. It’s not even an especially different or daring choice for a car ad, standard artwork for the industry.
Anonymous

aren’t both of these all just derivative works of the original maps? I don’t see any nods to Rand McNally, Google or whatever source they are using. I seriously doubt they went and took all the aerial photos themselves.

Anyways, kind of cool thing, but doubt this is the first time someone has cut out a map and left the roadways.
Anonymous

Reminiscent of:
http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2007/october/passion-sony-play-doh-no-rip-off

It has been said that, “pirates steal,designers appropriate”. I think the main difference is the eye-patch.
Daemon

Pablo Picasso: “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”
Anonymous

I remember seeing an exhibit a little while back of work by Jorge Macchi that included cut maps. His website has a Buenos Aires tour book from 2003 with the blocks removed leaving the streets and similarly themed work from slightly earlier. That said, I don’t see how anyone is being ripped off here. Even if the ads in question were directly inspired by O’Leary’s work rather than Macchi (who the Brazilian agency is more likely to have heard of before) or the long history of people cutting paper as art mentioned by kattw and others, they are not exact copies or unauthorized reproductions of anything except, perhaps, an idea.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Ripoff. Boo on them for doing it, and for not responding when you reached out to them. Now they’re going to be a little bit famous for it.

The agency in question is Lew’Lara/TBWA, Brazil.
- http://www.xeni.net Xeni Jardin
  
  Agree.
  
  O’Leary’s stuff got a lot of heat this year and in late 2009 on the blogs. It seems pretty clear to me, but that’s ultimately for God and Attorneys to decide.
  
  I will say this, though, their silence in response to repeated requests for comment speaks volumes.
  - Tzctlp
    
    No, it doesn’t speak volumnes.
    
    I like Boing-Boing, but this presumptiouness about companies having to rush to reply to any comments from any blogs is a bit hubristic.
    
    Most companies will never reply to requests for comments comming from random bloggers.
Anonymous

When I was in art school around 1994 there seemed to always be someone doing map cut outs like this.
It’s one of those concepts that every art student eventually runs into.
Hardly unique, even if O’Leary’s the one that’s now apparently internet famous for it.
Even if O’Leary’s work was the direct basis for the campaign it’s hard for me to consider that theft since O’Leary’s work heavily leans on a rather common concept.
mundens

Not a rip off.

Unless the maps used in the Nissan ad can be positively identified as a scan of one of Karen’s actual works, they are merely using the same source material and working in the same style.

If this was a rip-off, then every Impressionist landscape would have to be considered a rip-off of Turner
- robulus
  
  You mean, “not a legally infringing copy.”
  
  No question, it’s absolutely a rip off.
  
  It’s not the last sign of the end times, but it’s lazy, and it speaks to me of bored, creatively frustrated people who want to get out of their boring, creatively frustrating office, and drink beer.
eccentriffic

Somehow I’m reminded of the
Anonymous

I like the work, but the cities aren’t designed by one man, and papercutting isnt new. Combining them might be new, but i hardly doubt that, since i had to cut out my neighbourhood in grade school. Ok, some streets stayed attached back than.

Michael_GR

Advertising agencies steal ideas all the time; it’s common practice. Even Coca Cola copied one of their Superbowl ads from a Israeli milk chocolate drink commercial. Artistic styles are not copyrightable (and thank god for that!) so, while unoriginal, it’s not illegal.

You know, come to think of it, it’s just like the situation in the beginning of “Makers” – as an innovator, you have to cash in quickly on a product and move on fast before the competition copies it and mass produces it at a lower price.

robulus

No, its not a legally infringing copyright, patent, or trademark copy. Thanks to everyone who’s made that point.

But any claim that Nissan’s ad agency “built” from the the artists work is a big stretch.

This isn’t building on shared ideas, this is surfing and yelling across the office “hey, check this out, lets pitch it to Nissan!”

Then breaking early for lunch.

Anonymous

this the same as the slow motion jumping dogs vs the music video with slow motion jumping dogs.
Ad agencies copy stuff all the time.

Anonymous

Not a ripoff…I saw this kind of art when I was in architecture school. My roomate pasted it to our windows.
Karen’s is obviously more artistic because it’s hand-cut, and Nissan is not claiming great art, but cool advertising visuals.

And not responding to accusatory email demands from foreign bloggers is exactly what I’d have done unless I wanted to get into a flamewar.

Anonymous

i think “young british artist” jonathan parsons needs some props too. he started dissecting maps in 1994. see http://www.jonathanparsons.com/work/dissectedmaps.html#

Anonymous

Glad someone else found the link ;) Jonathan Parsons’ work in the Saatchi Sensations exhibition inspired me to do the exact same thing Karen Leary is doing now (painstakingly hand cut by scalpel too) when I was at art college in 2002.
I sincerely hope Karen is not the one making the accusations of being ripped off as she will just end up looking like a hypocrite (and you might want to make your post clear that you’re the ones making a deal out of this, not her).
Anonymous

“talent borrows, genius steals” Albert Einstein
thequickbrownfox

It’s a rip-off, pure and simple.

It’s not a matter of other artists already using cut paper or street diagrams in their works.

The essential and distinctive formal qualities O’Leary exhibits in her work have been hijacked by the Ad Agency, and they had to use a frickin’ laser to mimic her finesse.

She has just as much a case to sue as Tom Waits, who has successfully sued Ad Agencies for using “Waits sound-alike” singers in their campaigns.
Brainspore

“Good artists borrow, great artists steal.”

-Brainspore

(Art geeks will get that joke.)
- SKR
  
  Too bad Brainspore, the mere fact that we get the joke proves you are not a great artist.
Anonymous

I have seen so many cut out maps by artists over the years that I can’t say that Nissan is stealing any more than I would claim Karen is. I chalk it up to being a zeitgeist thing. Like Oprah and flash mob dances. Like fabric flower brooches on Etsy.

I think it is more important to focus on the process. Karen’s is hand-cut while Nissan’s is not. Personally, I am impressed with Karen’s patience and durable fingers. She makes beautiful work and should keep doing it despite Nissan and all of the other artists making similar work.
Anonymous

TBWA/Chiat/Day for Pepsi Refresh. They couldn’t come up with an original idea so they stole it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfBlUQguvyw&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fS39FitsoQ&feature=player_embedded
forgeweld

tea(tempest)pot.
hobomike

If I understand it correctly, Karen O’Leary’s stuff is hand cut and Nissan’s thing is machine made (laser-cut). Similar looking but really a totally different product. O’Leary’s is Art. Nissan’s is just marketing ephemera.

If anything, I think it brings more value to O’Leary’s stuff because it’s “authentic.” Humans rule.
revjaydub

As Xeni and others have said, many artists, including myself, create cut-paper maps in a myriad of ways. Life is large. Ideas are free and can’t be copyrighted.

The physical manifestation of an artistic expression, however, can be copyrighted – indeed, under current U.S. copyright law, it’s automatically copyrighted on creation. And it is clear that Nissan’s ad people have blatantly infringed on O’Leary’s work – the look and style is obviously derivative.

Unless O’Leary registered her copyright in the works, she cannot sue for damages, but would most likely succeed in a cease and desist campaign – which would mean millions lost for Nissan and a huge black eye for the ad agency.

Nissan’s ad campaign states, “Maps of Barcelona, BrasÃlia and Paris were redesigned using a laser cutting technique.” Nonsense. How can anything be “designed” by a technique? Sheer noise.

Nissan then says, “these maps represent the care and accuracy Nissan takes in designing cars.” Again, nonsense.
This is simply “slick.”

You want care and accuracy? Cut it by hand, one at a time, by the skilled hand of a unique artist.
- Tzctlp
  
  “The physical manifestation of an artistic expression”
  
  You talk about Nissan’s mumbo jumbo but are happy to throw around mumbo jumbo of your own creation (oh, the irony).
  
  What that means (I think) is that one can’t make the exact reproduction of a given cut out, but I am as sure as hell that I can copy the idea, the style and do any works I want that use the same principles and aesthetics but that are demonstrably different.
  
  The history of art is littered with examples of people using ideas from each others (there is a reason there are “art movements”, it is the way to describe a bunch of artists sharing ideas and often copying or reinterpreting each other’s works)
  
  Why in the name of the bunny the original poster and several other people think that this lady would be immune to such flattery?
  
  Oh, I get it, it is Nissan.
  
  (and as for the artistic human merits of doing this by hand, please, give me a break, get over yoursleves, you can achieve artistic results by many means, and nowadays automating the process is perfectly legitimate, people with such view about what has artistic merit are stuck in the 19th century if not even earlier).