Sometimes I get so disappointed in people, we have recently been made aware of a person who has copied not only our product (which is bad enough), but who also has copied our brand names "Baby Butterfly" and "Paper Papillons".
I thought that this was pretty bad, and in the interest of good faith we sent her a letter outlining our concerns in relation to the naming of the product which went unanswered, and has now forced us to engage a lawyer, which is distracting to us from our own business.
When I thought it was already bad enough, today I found out she was approaching some of our retailers with her product, which she claims in hand-cut despite the fact that they seem to be of an identical shape and size to this paper punch...
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog/zoomImagedetail.jsp?PRODID=9932161&imageType=m&itemType=sku
It is frustrating that someone can claim them as handcut when we actually spend hours with our trusty scaple cutting them out...
Anyhoo I am sure that Karma will result in a postive outcome but it sure is a painful thing to have to deal with!
Next post (which I will do tomorrow), I will update you on our visit to SA which was amazing!
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12 comments:
I wish you all the best on this one. If you like i will be happy to post this on my blog too. I think these people that prey on artists and do things like this are beyond understanding.
Thanks for your offer, that would be amazing if you could... The whole thing has left me stunned and struggling to understand how someone could justify it...
Then nice things happen like you offering to blog about it, and I realise the world hasn't gone crazy!
wow copying the product is bad enough, then the title makes it worse but approaching your stockists takes the biscuit !
If they are using that cut out stamp then I'd imagine it wouldn't look as good as yours at least !
Just try to think copycats never last as they are always 3 steps behind.
That's what we keep trying to tell ourselves littleclouds, but it is certainly frustrating - each day I am just more and more surprised at the cheekiness!
Good news is the lawyer today was confident that we can shut her down, and we will be starting those proceedings this week!
Curious to know if your work is all hand cut or is just the butterflies? It would just a little hyprocritical and unprofessional to be talking down someones else's work if you are doing the same. Would love to know which ranges are actually handcut like you say?
I love your art, this must be so trying for you, who is the business and what designs are they copying - I have seen quite a few butterfly art works getting around the markets lately, and Love,AJ has been in the papers but I'm sure she hand cuts her butterflies. Wasn't Catherine Swan one of the original artists to do this years ago and can you copyright art work like this?
Hi Anonomous (not sure if it is one or two people, so have lumped as one reply...)
Not sure what pieces you think are not hand cut, the very talented Angeline handcuts the forests and anatomicas, so while they may look like laser cuts, if you were to see the detail you would know they are handcut, happy for you to email me and I will send you some photos of Ange cutting them.
For the second poster, I do not want to publically call out who the business is, which is why they have not been named.
Amber (from love AJ) is just lovely and you are 100% correct she does hand cut her butterflies, we speak to Amber about different designs to ensure that everyone has different products out in the market place, and we don't step on each others toes. Paper butterflies are not a unique concept to us, and we are not claiming that they are, what we are saying is that under copyright law when we design a product, such as a grid of butterflies with a babies name underneath and/or DOB, that it is copyright protected, and if you were to put the two products side by side that there is sufficient differece, which unfortunately there is not in this case...
with so many things being personalised these days (and it being so easy to do) can you really claim this as a unique concept and have it copyright protected? all ur artworks look fantastic and i think people will recognise them for what they are. i imagine it would be extremely difficult to prove copyright on something like this???
Beautiful Work!
Are you sure your prints are all unique? Some of your images seem very familiar and I'm sure that Catherine Swan - http://www.paperbutterfly.com.au/ may also have this problem?
Are you kidding me!! Do a simple Google search on paper butterlies & you will find that there a literally hundreds of people who make & sell these. They are cut with a die-cut machine. YOU are definitely not the first and I would dare say you copied the idea from someone else yourself. Goodluck with a lawyer because nothing will come of that
Hi Anonymous,
Thank you for revisiting our post some two years on...
It is interesting that the website you refer to is one created some 2 years after we launched our paper cut range, perhaps a little homework may be in order to determine the original source of baby butterflies?
Since this post which was published over 2 years ago, we have noticed a significant increase in the amount of people completing these works, and yes the use of die cut machines has made it possible for people to jump on the band wagon so to speak. We are fortunate enough to have a skilled artist in our business who can cut and design everythign with a scaple, and this has meant that we have been able to continually release new designs. We have found rather than going down the lawyer path, which has at times had its uses, the best use of our effort is to contiually create new works so that we remain ahead of the pack.
If any of you have an issue, or wish to put your names to posts, feel free to contact us on our email info@almondtreeframes.com.au and we are more than happy to discuss your comments with you.
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