Keep calm…and take action

Flossy P, an Australian artist who is known for drawing giant wombats, discovered her designs were ripped off by a US-based online company. But unlike most cases, the outcome of her efforts to protect her intellectual property is a positive one.

The artist found out that the picture of the giant wombat she drew were printed in poor quality on art prints and t-shirts, and were being sold at higher prices and advertised with promotional photographs taken from her Flossy P Facebook page.

Instead of giving in to a kneejerk reaction like taking to social media to shame the culprit, Flossy P searched the Internet, talked to a lawyer friend and communicated with the alleged thief.

She made legal demands, lodged reports and resolved the issue within days. P said she managed to find ways around going the legal route against the offenders. She received advice to serve a cease and desist letter and then report the products and the shops they were selling their products on.

Unfortunately she did not find out the identity of the intellectual property thief, or thieves, behind the operation.

P has advice for Creators who are in a similar situation:

First, seek advice before reacting. She said: “The initial urge is to bring these people down with the full force of a raging social media barrage.” But a proper, well planned response will get you further, and prevent you from getting yourself in trouble.

Also, screenshot and document everything. She said: “I feel so empowered now I have timestamped records of everything that went down, even though the other person tried to erase them, including their own admission of guilt.”

Anyone familiar with physics knows that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and intellectual property thieves who steal and pass off ideas as their own are usually spotted very quickly on the Internet where eyes are everywhere.

Flossy P wrote on her Facebook page: “The internet is a strange and wonderful place...within hours of these products being launched and promoted, two of my lovely customers recognised my work, and reported the copyright infringement to me.”

There are many cases of Creators who give in to the name and shame game, angrily calling out the idea thieves online but not doing much about it. We hope this case proves that it is useful to stay calm and find out your options before taking action.