Saturday, June 27

Is copying REALLY flattery?

Does this look familiar??


Maybe it should because it is my original design. SEE BELOW!!



Thanks to a dear friend who caught this COPY OF MY CARD EXACTLY on SplitCoastStampers. What do you think? Is copying really flattery??

Well, I DO think so... As long as the person copying gives CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE!

I am very curious to know your comments and opinions on this subject. I am OFTEN confronted with this in the jewelry design spectrum of my work, but not with the paper-crafters. They seem to be more kind and diligent on giving credit to the appropriate person....

Back soon!

11 comments:

Nicole said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Andrea said...

Ugh! Totally with you. I agree that copying is flattery as long as you give credit where credit is due. When you copy something to the "t" that she did, she had to have known where she got it from...so a simple shout out to you would be completely appropriate. There may be times when you see a card that you like and store it in your memory banks for a future thing and then when you decide to use that idea, you cannot remember where it came from...but then it most likely would never look identical to the card you originally saw!

I am proud of you for standing up for your creations...and I think asking her to simply give you credit for it and stating that it was a CASE was completely in your right! You go girl!

Nicole said...

She apologized, took it off her blog and also off SCS AND she has now changed her blog settings to 'invited only readers'. I went to her blog to say THANK YOU for remedying this and she closed down access to her blog.

I, in no way wanted to have this be the end result. If you know me, I am ALL about encouraging people to be creative and let their Artist-Side be let out!

Denise ~ Paper Ponderings said...

It is sad that she didn't give credit where credit was due. It would have saved much headache!

Nicole said...

Thanks, I was beginning to doubt myself!

Unknown said...

OMG!! I can not believe she tried to pass this off as her own!! CASING is great but at least give credit when credit is due!!!

Unknown said...

You have a right to stand up for your creations. I'm totally for CASE'ing and scraplifting, BUT IT'S THE UNWRITTEN RULE THAT YOU GIVE CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE! If that doesn't happen, people think it's your creation, your hard work, your original creativity and that's not fair! Why do you think there are such things as copyrights and trademarks on items?!?!?

It's people doing stuff like this that give CASE'ing and scraplifting a bad name. Why do you think watermarks became such a big thing in the last couple of years to put on paper artists artwork?! Because of things like this!!

A simple shout out to you would've sufficed.

*stepping off my soapbox now*

Ms. Cheryl said...

I have been in the scrapbooking/papercrafting/art world for the last three years and learned early on when you put a picture of your work on the internet or submit it to a magazine you credit every product you use. It's not a giant leap to figure out if you COPY someone else's work you credit them.when you give them the credit it is saying, " I love what this person created so much I made one just like it". When you don't give that credit you are saying" I thought this up all by myself" which is at the very least a lie and more so just plain STEALING. Fortunately there are more honest crafters in this industry than dishonest.
I have your blog on my google reader and never miss a post. I love your work. Thanks for sharing, ms.cheryl

marcibun said...

This is a tough one - it's pretty clear that she did copy your design. Perhaps she's new and doesn't understand the protocol yet? I've seen layouts of mine copied and then published, which really ticked me off. On the one hand its just crafting, but on the other hand you don't want people ripping off your ideas. I would have done the same thing in this situation.

Kelly said...

Ok, I'm going to be the one here to say something a bit different. I am a definite CASEr, something that you know from reading my blog. Often I save a picture to my inspiration file, but not who made it. If it doesn't have a watermark on it, I often don't know where I got it. Your's obviously had a mark on it, but there have been many times that I just don't know who's it was. I have a disclaimer on my blog that states just that. I believe if you contact the person and "claim" your design than you can be properly credited. Just to play the ends vs. the middle here, what if she CASEd it from someone else who had CASEd you without giving proper credit? I don't have a stake in this one way or another, but I hate to hear that she felt so upset by the whole matter that she felt she needed to close down her blog.

Nicole said...

Hi!!

I appreciate everyone's input!

For Kelly: Barbara didn't 'close' her blog, she limited it by closing it to the 'public'. She did however delete her entire SCS gallery... which makes me think that she had known what she had done was inappropriate and was acting out of guilt. Or maybe I wasn't the only one she had done that to. I do not know that for a fact, though, of course!

I rarely ever CASE someone, but when I do, I DEFINITELY give the person credit. BUT, I LOVE your idea of a disclaimer, that surely can save someone who CASEs a lot of headache and worry; especially in the off-chance that they do lose track of the person they CASEd off of!

I would like everyone to know that I DID email her and told her that doing all of that was unneccessary and that I was only requesting being linked to my own work. If she wasn't willing to do that, then I did want her to remove it. I take to heart my artwork. It isn't just CRAFTS in my opinion!

I did tell her that I didn't mean to squash her sharing to the general public either. And (for Marci...) knowing that since she is NOT a newbie, but a 3 year member of SCS I would have thought that she would have come across the general 'rules' of crediting someone else's work when CASE'ing. However, IF SHE HADN'T then just let this be a learning experience, and know that going forward, it is only respectable to credit other artists for their creativity!

To say that she was NOT nice in her MANY & LENGTHY replies, is a HUGE UNDERSTATEMENT. HUGE HUGE understatement!

I KNEW that she had cased me directly since I saw her on my Traffic Feed. And honestly I felt that since she copied it down to the leaf, like an exact science, she had to have cased ME, not someone else.

I have been CASEd by a Dirty Dozen gal on SCS and was TRULY flattered and honored! BUT, that was also because she had told everyone where she had gotten the inspiration, from me AND even linked her card to mine! WOW!

PLEASE KNOW THAT I was not sarcastic, rude, nasty nor did I behave at all inappropriate with her. She did however not return the favor. At first when this started she had apologized; but then her attitude changed and she sent some emails that left me shocked, to say the least.

She hasn't responded to my last email where I noted how she was being nasty at ME {{and not the other way around}} for HER doing something that most crafters/artists deem inappropriate. So, hopefully this has brought to the surface for her how people feel about being CASEd without being credited for their art.

I, too, do NOT like the fact that she feels like she has to hide behind an 'invited viewers only' status, because there is much benefit from sharing with others online. But, this is not my decision, it is hers, and I have no say in the matter I guess.

I appreciate everyone's wanting to share their opinions and thoughts on this subject. Sometimes it CAN be a sticky one!

Howdy!