Many of you know I'm a member of DailyPainters.com and online group of ...guess what?!... daily painters! We work hard day after day to paint something original, eye-catching, fun, or perhaps even a masterpiece. We post our work at the site and on our blogs for online viewers to enjoy and (hopefully) purchase.
Then we find out that a Chinese art factory is ripping off lots of our images to offer at their website (without our permission!); painted copies of our originals. Brazen thievery of intellectual property. Many of my painting images they lifted were originally tiny paintings and were being offered at wall size "painted by artists with bachelor degrees". Yeah, right. I guess those bachelor degree programs didn't include any classes on the ethics of stealing other artists' work. But what am I thinking?! This is China we're talking about... famous.. or I guess I should say infamous... for cheap knock-offs of everything from "designer" luggage to "Rolex" watches.
The good news is that the Chinese site has now removed our images. Anytime you run across my work somewhere and suspect it is being used without my permission, please do contact me. I'll check it out and see if it's something for which I've given permission.
You can find bona fide reproductions of my work which I've authorized at my website repro page and at my giclee print gallery. And my originals are offered here at this blog, at my website, and my links page.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Illegal Chinese Copies Hurt our Art and Livelihood
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4 comments:
That's shocking! I'm glad they took down the copies of your work. I hope they aren't selling them elsewhere too. What was the web site? I've been advertising more and more and will have an ad in Art Collector in Dec. and don't want the same thing to happen to me.
A few months ago I went into a "gallery" that was selling "original oil paintings"-from China. They were copies of many famous paintings, "Starry Night" and "The Last Supper" were there but, they were painted SO horribly I couldn't believe anyone would buy them. I wanted to ask the owner how she felt about selling such awful reproductions but my husband talked me out of it.
The site is Book530. If you have art online somewhere, it's probably a good idea to do some checking. Look in the "More" section.
We're still finding contemporary artists' work there and are trying to let other artists know about it, especially if we run across their work.
I'd appreciate it if others would do that for me when they see my work on these sites (or other places that might not be legit)!
Your comment about the quality of the paintings you saw is telling. I'd been wondering if the final painting would look ANYTHING like the Old Masters' works they post on their site, available "painted by artists with bachelor degrees"!
China has just joined the Berne Convention, I've read, so perhaps things will improve with them for copyright issues.
Diana, I just read about this on Edward Gordon's site. I thought it was just HIM!
He painted a very interesting commentary on their plaigerism.
The nerve.
I liked the way he responded. He demanded his work be removed and also broadcast the offense on his blog so collectors and other artists could be aware of the problem.
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