Hello Internet. We need your help.
Last summer we introduced some posters to our Sparkle Power shop and it's really been a blessing for our family. Our biggest seller's been the La La Love You poster. It's been featured on a ton of great blogs like ohdeedoh (Apartment Therapy's parenting blog), Babygadget, Tangled and True, Creature Comforts and c jane. We've literally sold reams of the things. Like I said, it's been a boon to our family and has gotten a lot of eyeballs directed toward our fledgling enterprise.
So I guess it was only a matter of time until we were ripped off.
We were checking the Etsy front page before bed last night and had a little déjà vu hit us in the "Recently Listed" section there. How we managed to hit the front page at the exact right time to catch it is beyond me, but we did. Seems that a seller named [redacted] has produced a series of prints that bear more than a passing resemblance to our beloved and popular posters.
But, like the man says, you don't have to take our word for it:
There's a pink one. We have a pink one.
And an aqua one. We have an aqua one.
Reeeeeally sketchy, right? I mean, imitation's the sincerest form of flattery and all, but this is just ridiculous. If you look at either of her shops her other prints aren't even close to the simple, bold and elegant design of our original. And to add insult to injury, she's got the gall to copyright her posters in their descriptions. Seriously?
Plus, she's asking more than double what we're asking for a letter-sized print. (Hers are $22 for a letter-sized print. Ours are $8 for letter-sized, $10 for tabloid ... buy yours today!)
Last night we sent a friendly but firm e-mail asking that she remove the listings. As of this evening, the listings still stand. We ask that if you believe these posters to be knock-offs of our posters that you take the few minutes it will take to set up a free Etsy account (if you don't already have one) and send an e-mail to the operator of the shop, letting her know that stuff like this just isn't cool. And if you'd like to go further, you can link to this on your blog, Twitter, Facebook or Flickr. Solidarity, people.
We really hate to do this, but at the same time, these posters represent a lot of hard work and to see them blatantly plagiarized is really heartbreaking, insulting and infuriating.
We love Etsy. We believe in Etsy. It's a culture made up of people - like us - who love to create beautiful, original things. We have made a lot of friends through our work there. Please do what you can to make sure that this kind of stuff is not tolerated.
Thanks in advance for your help,
Team Sparkle Power
2 comments:
I'm glad to hear that it worked out for you. Yours does look better anyway.
Power to the people Marty, power to the people.
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