Life in the Network

Thanks for the great examples of the theft of intellectual property. These examples really bring to life last weeks readings.

Wow, I really liked your link that showed how businesses ripped off indepedent designers. On one hand, those businesses give a medium on which the independent designers' images can spread through; on the other hand, they make a profit from other people's ideas without giving them anything in return. I know that if one of my ideas was stolen like that, I would really pissed off. No one has the right to take another person's work and claim it as their own.

That's pretty sad that Urban Outfitter's practices are so bad that a website had to be created to call them on their questionable judgment. It's one thing to use a parody of an image in one's artwork. It's another thing to mass market a parody or modified image of someones work.

This was a great post. The title of the site really sums up what the businesses featured in the "You though we wouldn't notice..." post were probably thinking. In examples like those, it's quite disturbing, and in many cases, who knows, perhaps the artists would be ok with their work being displayed as Natalya sort of touched on in her comment. Though, that would be one more person a company like Urban Outfitters would have to hire, someone to work as a liaison between the company and artists.