Monday, February 27, 2012

Agency vs Artist

A great example of how not to respond to a community after you have stolen images for a campaign from multiple artists with heavy backing in the community:

Blog Run by Artists' Whose Work Was Stolen by an Ad Agency for an Oil Company's Ad Materials: http://art-theft.blogspot.com/2012/02/oil-company-uses-artists-works-without.html#!/2012/02/oil-company-uses-artists-works-without.html
 
They threatened to sue the artists (ya know, the ones they stole the images from in the first place) and they tried to pull the blog down that started to try and pull the artists together that had their artwork stolen. The blog went down over the weekend and went back live late Sunday/early Monday am.

The Artists on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OilCompanyUsesArtistsWorks

Originally the artists were trying to ask for restitution from the oil company that hired the agency to work up the collateral, now that the artists understand an agency did the work they will be aiming for either both or just the agency. Not only are the artists reaching out for getting compensated for their work they are also reaching out to various media outlets and this is probably going to be a pretty big viral event for online artists within the steampunk community. Just something to keep an eye on.

Watch it unfold from the agency’s side here:
The Ad Agency on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scanpartner?sk=wall

The agency admitted to pulling images from various locations online in an e-mail to one of the artists which is now on file.
The issue was addressed in October but was never responded to by the agency. It was not until this weekend that it seems the agency has noticed anything was amiss.

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