Copy Cat, Dirty Rat!

When writing these blogs, I have always tried to be positive, but when I woke up this morning, I just could not hold back.

I am really getting sick and tired of all the copying that’s been going on in this industry!  After close to 20 years working in this field I have seen my share of copying and its really starting to bug me so I felt compelled to write about it.

The initial reaction is always ” don’t be offended, it’s a great compliment” but is it?  NO its not!

I truly think that I have seen more knock offs in this industry then I’ve seen on Canal Street in New York and its really got to stop.

The internet has made it so easy for everyone to just copy what they see or what they like.  They also think that if they are in another country, no one will notice.  Well that’s not the case, we always end up finding out.

Once there was this well know fine artist, somewhere in Europe, that was incorporating exact copies of one of my illustrators works onto his  canvases and claiming that they were his original work.  It was almost like an exact copy and so obvious.  The illustrator ended up finding out and was of course livid.  The matter was later handed over to lawyers to follow up.

There was also this one time that we found several ” knock offs” of a few of our illustrators on a stock website that was selling the work.  The ” illustrator” in questions was going by some pseudo name and it was impossible to track him/her down.  They claimed that the work they supplied to the stock house was their own but was indeed stolen from a few of our illustrators right from our website.  I personally contacted the stock house at the time and told them the illustrations were stolen and they agreed to remove all the illustrations from their site.

There are also all the people who call themselves illustrators that source the web for great work and just plain copy it.   If they only had a conscience and knew that copying a successful illustrator style is such a low thing to do and really looked down upon.

So for  good reason that all this copying is really strating to get to me.  There are many more examples that I could give but I think you get my point in regards to illustration.

For the longest time I have been fighting for all the artists that I have represented over the years but now its my turn to be pissed!

This week in the local news, a local Illustration agency launched their new website which is the exact carbone copy our AGM website.  Its unbelievable but very true.  In fact if i didn’t know better I would think it was my site without my logo and theirs instead.  I don’t want to mention who they are because I don’t want to give them any more publicity but they sure know who they are and so will every other person that goes on their site.  The layout is exactly the same as it the way you navigate.  Everything about the look and functionality of their site is exactly like ours at http://www.agoodson.com which has been up and running for well over a year now.

They promote their site as New but they should have just claimed it was a complete copy of AGM’s website.  I wish I could give you the link but would prefer not to give them any free publicity.

If I sound pissed,  I am and rightfully so.  If an agency wants to redesign their website then they should at least have the morals and decency not to copy an existing website, especially one in the exact same field.     A compliment you say?

This agency intentionally copied AGM’s site down to the last detail.

Do they really think that if their site looks exactly  like AGM ‘s and they go out and represent artists that look exactly like AGM’s  that they will become as successful and respected as AGM?

If that’s the case and they truly want to be ” Just like AGM”, then this is the biggest compliment and most flattering thing that has ever happened to Anna Goodson Management.

Unfortunately for them however, we have been in the process now for months, working on a totally NEW redesign of our website that will be launched in the beginning of Jan 2010.  Just wait and see, its going to be amazing!

So let the COPY CATS, DIRTY RATS keep on copying!

We at AGM and all of our talented ORIGINAL ARTISTS will be busy being progressive and laying the way for others to follow or should I say copy.

OUPS! typo.