| |
| Zero Tolerance by Daniel Smith |
Over the past few years there has been an increase in the influx of plagiarized original art. I have received several emails alerting me to the fact that once again, one of my paintings has been plagiarized. Visit eBay and you can purchase an original oil painting of lions and elephant (my copyrighted Zero Tolerance). The painting is reported to be 100% hand painted oil on canvas. The sellers, almost exclusively from China, state, "If you need us to paint your favorite pictures, please contact us. We will list it as customized artwork on eBay." They go on to say that they have "many advanced artists in our oil paintings studio, one of them is a famous professor teaching oil painting in Central Art University of China." They state that the "artist's fame" will grow with each purchase. But the one statement that stuck in my craw was, "Scenes of this high quality art do not come along very often."
One of the most enjoyable aspects of my job is gathering reference. I was fortunate to photograph the lionesses on a trip to Kenya. They were scrambling from an aggressive charge by a large male lion, and it gave me the perfect attitude for my concept. The cantankerous old bull was from another trip to Tanzania. I agree that scenes like the one from Zero Tolerance do not come along very often. My scene was a culmination of years of painting experience, trips to Africa, numerous hours of conceptual drawings and over two months of painting. All the con- artist had to do was steal my image and copy it.
eBay has been an outlet for many of these plagiarized works but not the only outlet. Recently I saw a Morgan Weisling in a local high-end furniture/decorator store. The copy was quite good. The quality of the plagiarized works can range from quite amateurish to professional. The artist`s signatures can vary from fictitious names to copied signatures of the original artist. Another artist told me a story about a couple of avid collectors who stumbled upon a plagiarized Weisling offered for sale by one of the stores for several thousand dollars. The copy was very good and no signature appeared on the painting. Whether the fraud is occurring on Main Street or on the Internet, we need to be aware and educated consumers.
Until recently, we have turned all copyright infringements over to our former publisher, Mill Pond Press or our current publisher, Greenwich Workshop. Both publishers have expressed frustration in dealing with eBay. Trying to communicate with eBay is almost next to impossible. We have written to sellers but oftentimes they completely ignore requests. eBay has developed the Verified Rights Owner (VeRO) Program to facilitate cooperation between eBay and rights owners. The highlights of the program include the "expeditious removal of listings reported by intellectual property rights owners, the proactive monitoring and removal by eBay of listings that violate eBay policies, suspension of repeat offenders and cooperation with rights owners seeking personal information on alleged infringers." We filed our first VeRO report and have not heard back from eBay. We hope that if eBay has enough complaints about a particular merchant that merchant will be removed. But we did hear back from seller "zjb.aini2008" thanking us for our email and said that they were pleased to hear from us and wondered what size we would like for our new original painting.
This is not their original painting. It was reproduced from my copyrighted original. One may ask why I care or why anyone should care. I strive to create the highest quality work that I possibly can. I try to create an experience for my buyers. I have spent a considerable amount of time and money gathering reference throughout my career. I strive for honesty both as a businessman and an artist. I am not alone in this corner...many artists share my concern. We all struggle creating a painting and in the end the painting becomes part of our soul. Collectors who paid for a one-of-a-kind original are seeing these knock-offs selling for a fraction of the cost of the originals.
Piracy is a considerable problem in our world today and the artworld is not immune. If you are an artist, please make sure your work is properly documented at www.copyright.gov. Be as vigilant as possible in defending your property rights but don`t let it consume you. This is a huge problem and the growing fact is that we have little defense against outright theft of our copyrighted images in China.
"The life of an artist is full of many challenges; by becoming a collector you also become a benefactor of someone who has chosen to add creativity and beauty to the world." Barney Davey