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Advice please!

Just recently I've noticed that another handmade jewellery maker has introduced a line of reconstructed vintage pieces. Fair enough, after all I'm not the only person to do it. But in this particular case the focus on giving broken and unloved items a new lease of life is almost identical to what I do - to the extent that some of the wording used by the other person is pretty much exactly the same as mine.


Coincidence? Perhaps. But when a press release this person put out in June bears a striking resemblance to one I did in May, you have to start wondering. Hmmm...

Comments

theothermousie said…
I had something similar happen to me (twice actually) & I had been so careful to make things that were different & write descriptions that were quirky - so nobody could ever say I had copied. I wanted my work to be original. When it happened the first time I did nothing, the second time I tried to handle it through a third party & found there was very little I could. It was so frustrating. I have every sympathy. Apart from contacting the person & asking them to desist & show them proof that you have been doing this work originally & for a longer time - I really do not know what you can do.

They say you should be flattered by someone copying you - but I felt far from it. I'm really sorry this has happened to you & I hoped something gets sorted. x
24 September 2009 at 17:25
Milomade said…
I had a similar thing happen to me on Folksy - someone created a some jewellery exactly like mine and then copied my description word for word and just changed the colour information. I got in touch with them and told them they had a lot of cheek to copy everything word for word. They claimed they'd written it themselves. I found that hard to believe and kept emailing and complaining. I even wrote a post about it in the forum. A few days later the person removed the items from their shop and that was that.

It's very difficult to avoid this kind of situation. I hate it when I see lesser quality versions of things that I make priced at next to nothing as I feel it undermines what I do and the time it takes me to create the things I do.
1 October 2009 at 16:42
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