The much beloved, right leaning hardware store that anchors the river town of Arlington has been using a local artist\u2019s designs for some of their clothes and sundries. When she confronted the store with proof, they pulled the goods off the shelves but said, well, since she hadn\u2019t bothered to copyright her work, their use of her art was perfectly legitimate. Too bad they didn\u2019t consult an attorney first, one who could explain that us artists\u2019 work belongs to us, no need to file a copyright claim. It\u2019s ours. Period. <\/p>\n
When the hardware store did get an attorney, his response was that the issue was basically settled and if the artist didn\u2019t shut up they would hit her with defamation and harassment lawsuits. Whoa ho, Goliath is gonna roar! Who doesn\u2019t love a bully? Well, Ms. Eells didn\u2019t. She called up a few of the companies whose work Arlington Hardware had also borrowed or stolen (?) to let them know theirs, like hers, had been used to sell everything from T-shirts to sweats, folks like Coors and Harley Davidson, Rainier and Marlboro, AC\/DC and Tim McGraw, formidable allies.<\/p>\n
The irony of this is that Arlington, the city, has reimagined itself as a town that features public artworks from the river to its southern city limits, sculptures and murals, metalworks and fused glass installations. Maybe the hardware store was just embracing this aesthetic collaboration, despite the slogans featured on some of their clothing, fun stuff like the assault rifle with the words \u2018Come and Take it\u2019, or \u2018If This Flag Offends You I\u2019ll Help You Pack\u2019, maybe not the friendliest or most inclusive.<\/p>\n
In full disclosure, I am an artist myself. Or so I like to think. But even if the art isn\u2019t museum-worthy, the art is mine, not some company\u2019s to use to sell their merchandise. And no, I never applied for copyright on any of it. Don\u2019t have to, don\u2019t need to. The law is pretty clear, especially in this state. Common law copyright, look it up. What Arlington Hardware is probably doing right now if they haven\u2019t already. <\/p>\n
I can only hope they don\u2019t see this little blog as harassment or defamation of their esteemed character. But hey, if you\u2019re reading this, A. H., contact my sales staff for information on price lists for my designs. Cut you a helluva deal on the train station clock design with \u2018Time to Wake Up\u2019 underneath. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The much beloved, right leaning hardware store that anchors the river town of Arlington has been using a local artist\u2019s designs for some of their clothes and sundries. When she confronted the store with proof, they pulled the goods off the shelves but said, well, since she hadn\u2019t bothered to copyright her work, their use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[6201,5326],"class_list":["post-17345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rantings-and-ravings","tag-arlington-hardware-art-appropriation","tag-stealing-from-the-starving-artist"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17346,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17345\/revisions\/17346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skeeterdaddle.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}