Because we support handmade, we felt a responsibility to the handmade community to chime in on the Urban Outrage subject.

A small, independent designer creates a design. A large corporation takes the design and mass produces it. The small, independent lacks marketing and promotion budgets. The large corporation has multiple retail outlets on a global scale and a comparatively large marketing budget. Let's say for arguments sake - and because it's a common theme to develop and gain inspiration from other designs and influences - that that design is informed by other influences and designs. Possibly the design is not uniquely the small, independent's own. Does this mean it's open season? Can any large corporation/company grab whatever design is out there, just because there is no way to legally prove and defend the origin?

Corporate/Company Social Responsibility (CSR) can be seen as separate from a Company's legal responsibilities. Just because something is legal to do, does not make it the moral thing to do. If the only guidelines of a company's are legal, then we might - as consumers, and general members of society - question whether that company's position within the marketplace is valid. Just because you can, doesn't mean you do. Just because others have recreated a specific design, does not justify a large Company's actions. 12 wrongs still don't make a right. This is not a level playing field; a multi-national corporation is not operating on the same plane as a small independent.

Oh, and the token, small number of independents that the corporation supports by offering shelf space, does not wipe it's hands clean. And the assertion that your reply is in defense of those few independents is PR spin; it's really about damage control for the corporation's face.

-Earl

........................................................

Update: Since we posted this we want to clarify our issue. We don't condone the copying and selling of anyone's work (independent or corporate) - what we're saying is this company at issue here is stating it's a non-issue (basically) in their response statement.

There have been claims for years that this company and it's subsidiaries are well-known for copying independant artist's work (or buying copied work - made in China products) and re-selling them in their stores (see a few examples here , here and here). With their recent debaucle, and their response to it, we question their ethics and validity in the marketplace. And because we represent many independent artists online, we feel we have a responsibility to say something as a part of that community and not let this go as a "non-issue".

A few other's have chimed in online, and I'd like to direct you to Aesthetic Outburst. Abbey perfectly sums up how we feel. Click here to read.

Also read more over at Wolfie and the Sneak, Renee also wrote about this subject earlier this year a couple times here and here.

And Renee's newest post here.

-Jan

........................................................

If you don't know what we're talking about, here's the history:

Read this in order:

1) http://www.myaimistrue.com/2011/05/urban-outfitters-ripoff-trending-topic
2) http://www.regretsy.com/2011/05/27/urban-outrage
3) blog.urbanoutfitters.com/blog/urban_outfitters_responds_to_false_allegations_by_necklace_designer
4) http://twitter.com/#!/designsponge/status/74518175152226304

The Sidetrack Cafe: Setting Up Shop by Uniform Natural

We're taking a little "Sidetrack Cafe" detour today to follow a post I recently came across that I think readers considering "setting up a new shop" might enjoy. Recently Martha of Uniform Natural posted a great write up on her blog of her experience setting up her new shop Scarfshop that opened this past September. Since I've known Martha online for some time now and have seen her successes and watched her business grow; I thought (and she also thought) our readers would enjoy reading her process and thoughts. With a background in Architecture, I love Martha's design aesthetic, and I also trust her business sense. And since she has been selling online for quite some time now, I think this is a great read for anyone considering "setting up shop" or a new shop (like she did). Click here to read. Also if you get a chance, visit her Scarfshop website (being sure to scroll to the right; you'll love it)!

The Sidetrack Cafe No. 4: A New Magic (Part III)

Hold On to Your Dreams by Creative Thursday

Please read Part I first and then Part II before reading this.

Hi from both of us; this we're hoping will be the last (for awhile) on the subject of magic, copying, etc., but we just wanted to tie a few loose ends up this week and tell you our plans with respect to all of it.

We spoke up, because we felt it needed to be done. And thank you to the community for all of the support. That was magical to see your response. Those of you who wrote, commented, tweeted; thank you for restoring the magic and keeping it real. It's an issue we are going to take forward in a more stronger sense in the months to come in some sort of capacity - the definitions just haven't worked themselves out yet.

Our take on copying goes like this. If you are making something for yourself, a friend, your mother, then D.I.Y. away. If you have the skills and love creating, that's your business if it's for personal use only. But if you're going to sell it, then that's where it crosses the line. You're going to loose credibility fast and not only is it uncool, it just can't make you feel good.

With respect to copying our business model. What we were speaking to was more about the unfairness to the handmade community versus copying our idea. To be fair to the community, a market like ours needs the readership from an established blog like ours to send traffic to it. Some started a blog with the launch of their market or perhaps 2 months before. As well, the poor ethics in which some of these markets were created. (e.g. first by participating in ours to see how it worked, and then by offering our vendors free space to create a false sense of a successful market to others visiting. Then others would then join, and so on and so on). That was the clincher and what we were talking about. What we are saying is, "buyer beware".

With respect to newbie's teaching e-courses on blogging and marketing that have no credentials, also, buyer beware. It wasn't to discourage newbies, but the opposite, to empower them to not buy into these types of courses. There are alot of good courses out there by established people from the community, and we will address some of that soon (see second last paragraph about our plans).

And with respect to the newcomer. We can't stress how much we love new. Especially in this business. Because things get old fast online and we like things fresh and new. So we disagree with anyone saying it's harder for the newbie. It's not. If you have talent and are original in some way you have just as much a chance to be featured as any established artist out there. There is no elitism. Anyone who knows us ore reads this blog knows that. One of the reasons we're doing this is for the underdog. We're champions of those sorts of things and we cannot bear to see any type of unfairness, deception, or elitism.

If we haven't replied to your email, or haven't posted about your work, then there's two things at play. We haven't had time, or we haven't seen your email. We're getting at least 200 emails a day; and a lot of it goes into the junk folder, which we are currently looking into and in the meantime, try to check, but there's just some days it empties itself before we can get to it. So we're sorry for that. So try us again, and if we still don't reply, then try again and ask why. We truly will respond if we can.

And now for our plans. In the new year we are going to be offering up something "in the spirit" of the way the old internet days were. It's going to be free, and it's going to help those who feel they need help out there. We are excited about it and we hope it will start a new wave of "magic". In the meantime if you have any questions feel free to email us.

Also if you get a chance, please visit Renee of Wolfie and the Sneak on the tragic things happening with respect to design theft and Marisa of Creative Thursday who wrote a thoughtful post on Becoming an Original in responce to our posts. They're both worth the read!

Till then, we think it's time to get on with the season! Thanks again for your readership and for your support.

xo
jan and earl

Wolfie and the Sneak

The Sidetrack Cafe No. 4: In Support of Authenticism (Part II)

Carrie Strine

I rarely post directly; often, we discuss things and we throw ideas around and I'll throw in my two cents, but I leave the writing for the most part to Jan and sit at my computer in the other room and fight with code - but today I thought I'd type English and weigh in on the ongoing discussion that we generated with our What Happened to the Magic post.

We've received a ton of response from this post; most of it echoing our feelings about copying (note "copying" vs. "deriving inspiration from"), and I think a lot of the community out there feels in some way the same as us, but we've also heard from others that either feel differently, or who are misconstruing our message. We want to strongly emphasize that we fully support "newbies" and new, up and coming artists, or any other community members who are discovering and exploring the handmade landscape. Our whole concept from the beginning was to support indie and emerging talents, many of whom found exposure difficult and hard to come by, and to provide a community and voice to so many of the great artists that we discovered online. We certainly don't want to discourage any new artists; new artists are the life blood of what we see beauty in.

But, what we do feel strongly about is misuse of the hard work and many years of love and passion that artists put into honing their craft, only to have it blatantly ripped off by people/companies with no accreditation or (heaven forbid) monetary reward for all the effort/love/passion/time they've put in. All the great crafts and handmade's that are out there have been born of an artist's hard work and thoughtful reflection, to see all that effort being misappropriated is - in my wife's words - sad (my words are not as kind - but then, she's a beautiful person).

We've also seen some feedback that speaks to not worrying about all this copying stuff, not "getting bogged down" and to just keep on creating and let this other stuff work it's own way out, and I really wished the world would work like that, but, alas, it doesn't. I think we all need to take responsibility, because only by working together to protect our own works can we create an atmosphere where an artists' sweat can be valued. Copying does matter, and we need an appropriate response to it.

Earl

(Part III to this post is here.

The Sidetrack Cafe No. 4: What Happened to the Magic? (Part I)

isphotography

Do you remember back to a time when there were magical love notes, original porcelain knitware vases, doily installations, and original Rosa Pomar dolls? Do you remember? (It goes back a bit). We do - and along with those other original handmade artists and bloggers who were there from those early days (circa '05) - we really miss the spirit of those days; we've really lost something special along the way.

I write this post, in sadness really; I'm reminded that in as much as the internet has helped handmade art, handmade artists and the whole handmade movement, it is also crushing the magic, the beautiful, the real handmade, the original.

I write this to those who don't remember, and maybe to those who have forgotten. I'd like to shed a little light. I'm saddened to hear today about an artist no longer making because for the most part a big company has stolen several of her designs and had them mass-produced in China.

I'm saddened when I hear that an artist has to write her lawyer a letter every time someone copies her work (which is very often).

I'm saddened when I see artists giving away their works on blogs that are only having giveaways to drive more traffic.

I'm sad when I see someone using my brand name on their site to get more traffic to their site via google.

I'm sad when I see companies staging as if they're "indie"; ripping off real indie businesses and then seeing these items in magazines (who don't know the back story).

I'm sad when I see an artist contact me to write about their "charity" when really they only want the press about their work.

I cringe whenever I see a newbie blogger (that has no background in marketing & blogging whatsoever) giving e-courses on "blogging" or "marketing your work" and I'm sad that many are buying it! I'm really sad.

It seems so many want a piece of the pie. Yes, they may have the flashy sites, and say all the right things; but I'm sad people are believing the hype.

It takes everything away from what the internet was supposed to and should be.

Personally, it saddens me too, that so many have copied our business model, Poppytalk Handmade. Not that we don't like competition, that just makes us better. But because so many are in it for the wrong reasons. You may recall my Copy Cats post from this past March. But in case you haven't, let me quickly give you the reason I mention it again, and why I'm sad.

Here's an example. One person who recently started up a market (like ours), emailed wanting to advertise with us (as many of them have); and when I gave her a bit of our "back story", and explained why we couldn't take her advertising dollars, her response was, "Oh, I'm surprised, I just thought it was something bloggers do". What? You want to start a market, after you just started a blog just because you think it would be cool to work from home? And you want to "buy" my readership (that I worked so hard at for 5 years to get) to visit your site that you copied from me?

Or even worse, as in one particular case, you want to buy my readership to visit your site that you copied from me after you participated in my market to see how it worked and then say it was "your idea" on your site? And in that same case, approach my vendors that I created years establishing relationships with, offering them free space initially on your site, creating a false community that seems successful just because there are people in it (who look like they paid)? That people is freakin' crazy and really uncool. It's unfair to the handmade community.  Yet, many (who aren't aware of the back story) sadly buy into it.

It took us years to gain a readership strong enough to even support such a venture, a readership in numbers that would be fair to the handmade community involved and yet, some think they can do the same after just starting a blog after two months. And now there are so many markets, so many it's dizzying. And many are buying it. That's even crazier.

I don't know what the answer is to all of this, and we probably can't control a lot of it (yet). But I would like the media, (eg. magazine editors, newspapers, bloggers) to take better notice what they are featuring in their publications. Is it from the original artist, or made from a company that copied that artist, with lots of marketing dollars to get your attention? I would love for the handmade community to come together as a force to be reckoned with! I think we as bloggers, big, little or small, should always give credit where credit is due (including images). I would love for the handmade community to not buy into all of the online marketing schemes out there; don't get me wrong, there are some good ones, but sometimes, even if they are "indie", "indie" doesn't always mean it's got your best interests in mind.

It's sad that Stephanie Congdon Barnes isn't making anymore, because we are all missing out on something magic. And I don't know about you, but I miss something magic.

xo
jan and earl

Parts II to this post is here and Part III is here.

P.S. Have you read my other Sidetrack Cafe posts?

The Sidetrack Cafe No. 3: Copycats

Copy Cat by Mitchell & Dent via Bloesem

We’re taught in school not to steal; it’s one of the foundations that a society needs in order for it to survive. Without this basic fundamental, much of commerce, business, or even friendships - and most all forms of human interactions - wouldn’t be possible. Not being able to trust others from stealing our own possessions would cause most person to person contact to be strained. Society has built in safeguards for all of us; much of common law is built around the premise that others should not steal from us, and yet it still happens.

In our online world, we’ve seen our share. Of stealing, that is. (Yes, let’s call it plainly). Ideas, topics, out and out plagarism; we’ve seen all the above things stolen from us and others in the online community. You might find my tone pointed; so be it. I’m tired of others who freely take from the hard work and dedication of others and ride on the coattails of their successes.

Others have expounded a view that the copycatting creates an environment that fosters further creativity. Perhaps, but perhaps creativity might be better served if the copycatters were to focus their energies on creating NEW ideas, rather than stealing others’ ideas. I think competition is good, but I don’t think blatantly stealing from others is good.

A case in point; we’ve worked hard to provide a great platform to allow the exposure of truly great artists in our monthly online market. We have had the participation of many great artists, and we’ve truly been honored by their involvement. Many of the artists have communicated that it’s worked really well for them, and we’re proud of our years of hard work that we invested into the market that created that success. BUT, we’ve had copycatters. Not only that, but we’ve had artists that we’ve hosted on our site, that – after seeing how our artist interface worked – went out and directly stole our EXACT business model. Some went so far as to actually use the exact same categories that we created. Do I call this healthy competition? No, I call it stealing.

I think one of the most valuable things that I can say here is the online world is small, very small. It doesn't matter where you are. If you're copying someone's work and you're online, eventually it'll be found, so I wouldn't recommend it. It's not nice and it's not cool. It doesn't matter where you are. I once had a friend request on Facebook from someone in Mexico. I went to her page to check her out and found an ad for her work, where she was using someone's photo who happened to be participating in our market. Copying comes in many forms. Maybe it's an idea, or perhaps they are using a portion of your work mixed into theirs. It's so varied. And I guess what one has to do is decide how important it is to fix.

What to do about it? I've seen success with just contacting the party. So I know it can be easily done by approaching the person to end it from happening again. If that doesn't work, and if you feel it's worth it, your best bet is to contact legal advice. The most important thing of course (and I'm sure I don't have to tell many of you) is to copyright your work first if you make things; but for those of you who are new to this; Design Sponge has a post on Copyright 101 for Designers that explains it well here.

Another good read is this Good to Know Zine on Plagiarism from Pikaland. Not only are there some samples of what other artists have experienced, but an article is included in it originally posted on Book By Its Cover blog entitled, Your Copyright Questions Answered written by copyright lawyer Amy J. Everhart.

If it's an idea, a business model or a blog post. What are our options? That is a little more grey. Some things are more obvious of course. But a lot of times it's pretty easy to figure out what to do next. For legal advice a few sources I've found online are here:

Canada - Canadian Intellectual Property Office - Copyrights
U.S. - U.S.Copyright Office
Australia - Australian Government - Copyright
UK - Design and Artist's Copyright Society

Have you been copied? What have you done about it. What happened. Lets open it up in the comments section; we welcome your thoughts, opinions.

Earl and Jan

The Sidetrack Cafe No. 2: Giveaways

abbytryagain

Recently I polled on Twitter what people's thoughts were on giveaways. And to clarify what I meant by that was, giveaways of other artist's work on design blogs as a way to promote the artist's work.

What I've noticed as of late and what has started to concern me are all these giveaways happening and are they really working? Who is benefiting; the blog or the artist? So I thought it would be fun to take a poll here to see what you think. And then afterward let's take it to the comments section to discuss. It's an interesting subject and what I think could be a hot topic.




From my experience, I would think the blog who is hosting the giveaway is the one who most benefits, especially if they do it on a regular basis because it keeps people coming back to the site. Giveaways bring in more traffic, which in turn pays for their advertising, or future advertising (which many of them could be working up towards). Personally, I feel it is only ok if the design blog is sharing in the artist's costs with the giveaway. Other than that, the artist is being taken for a ride unless that blog has huge huge readership and is able to prove it by third party reports (don't rely on self-reporting stats ) and can really make an impact.

I feel so many artists are being taken and this concerns me. I have had giveaways here, and most of them have been because of a special occasion of some sort or because I know them. How I really feel? Psssssst! Artists/Designers, if you are doing giveaways, the blog (especially if they are smaller) should totally be paying for your work. You are only really helping them, especially if they are "giveaway blogs". Many of them too ask for samples. I've never asked for one sample, even for my market. Maybe they should be asking for better pictures.

I'm not saying giveaways are a bad thing - but I do think artist's are being taken advantage of in some cases and I just want to bring that out into the consciousness. Giveaway's are a gratitude for our readers (and at times to introduce new work I suppose) however it should be done with integrity.

This is my opinion.

What's yours? Is this selling out? Does this cheapen the blog? Who is really benefiting? Let's discuss (thread-style) in the comments section.

The Sidetrack Cafe No. 1

Photo credit: Noel Kerns
When I first started this blog five years ago this month, it was never with the intention of a readership. The intention back then was to catalogue inspiration for me as a student in communication design. What evolved was; the unintentional readership, the online business of blogging, our marketplace and the immense pride in showcasing emerging and amazing talent. This blog and it's online marketplace has become not only a job, but a passion for both Earl and myself.

In this mini column I'm calling "The Sidetrack Cafe", I'm going to step away (get sidetracked if you will) from the beautiful, the decayed and the handmade and talk about issues with respect to the business side of this online world that many of us have found ourselves immersed in, and share some thoughts and perspective; and also open up conversation if you're willing to participate. I didn't go to business or marketing school, so I don't consider myself an expert at any means to start writing a business column, and we all know there are many resources online (good and bad) for that. But what I'm going to share here is my experience as a blogger these past five years, my point of view on how things have evolved with respect to the online world, the community, blog and online business etiquette, the business of blogging, the state of the blogosphere and hopefully open up conversation to make this online world a better place for artists and bloggers. I won't be able to do this alone, but with your help maybe we can all make a difference. I hope you'll join me.

So leave a comment here, with topics you would like to discuss, questions you may have and we'll see where this goes. Topics/ideas that come to mind for example: Giveaways - Do they work and who benefits (the blog that hosts the giveaway or the artist), Corporate Blogging (Someone's been offered a corporate blogging position, should they join how does it affect indie blogs?); Someone has copied your work, what should you do; Advertising; etc. The intention here is to help, enlighten, and inspire. The conversation will continue in the comments (thread style) where we will welcome people's experiences, opinions, etc. I look forward to hearing from you!