Horns of a dilemma: I would really love to get that George Stubbs original painting for sale on ebay . . . but it just feels so wrong. (a rant)
SO this time of year I put a few prints up for auction on eBay. In the past it was excellent money. Lately we just don’t have enough hours in the days to get them posted. We did however post one print. You might be thinking why bother. We’ll I’m kinda priming the pump and plan to post more soon.
But anywho, I was searching the horse art and started scrolling through the listings. And up popped this beautiful George Stubbs “Original” painting for sale by “the artist.” Starting bid .99 cents plus $57 shipping. (But heck it’s coming all the way from China) I’m like “What the . . . “ Because, well . . . good ol’ George has been dead for a few hundred years.
So I click on the item and see it is a large canvas being sold by . . . well I’m not sure (slanderous maybe?) for me to actually list the seller in question. So I’ll just say . . . um, it sounds like Darth Vader. Well it more like rhymes with it. I mean honest-trader doesn’t really rhyme with anything. (Yeah I know right? I mean if you have to make “honest” part of your name . . . well that’s a clue right there then isn’t it.) BTW, Darth has a very high satisfactory rating on eBay.
So curious gal that I am, I click to view other items from this seller. At that time “he” (and I’m using that term loosely because I don’t doubt for a minute that it’s a stable of artists mass producing that work) had 16 pages of original paintings for sale. (Thats around 300) Mostly it looked like a museum classical art collection with the occasional odd monkey painting thrown in.
Over here I can get the Mona Lisa (retitled something like smiling woman) and under that I could get a chimp in lipstick and pearls. If I like the painting but not the size they will paint it again any size I want. (What service!) Apparently monkey art is equal in value as Stubbs, Degas or Da Vinci.
Hey eBay! why not just set a 100 character limit and let me briefly explain what the trouble is. Instead of me wasting 25 minutes of my time and end up with my final report saying this artwork seller is selling illegal movies and/or drug contraband.
So I’m all good with this until I run across a painting of a cowboy encouraging his horse to cross a river. This is a knock-off of a recent painting by artist Craig Tennant called “Don’t get me wet.”
Well . . . that got my dander up. I immediately clicked on “report this item” which turns out offers you about 5 selections to choose from explaining why you are reporting it. I choose something that was close but not quite right and another automated questions arises with a smattering of choices. So again I choose the closest approximation of what my issue is . . . and yes another question followed by another and another. Each leading me farther and farther from my actual complaint.
So to keep me from totally going off about what a pain eBay’s report system was, I will sum it up by saying, in the end I did not report it. The choices were so limited, it didn’t make any sense in regard to what the actual issue was.
I felt the need to do something though. Part of me knows that the Chinese copycats do this and that’s just the way it is. But another part says that eBay should remove this seller. I mean seriously does anyone believe that Darth painted the Mona Lisa and Monkey with purse and the other 300 paintings he is offering as “his” work.
So then I thought. Okay, I’ll just email the artist. Let him handle the situation if he is so inclined. And so I clicked the contact link on his website and something called evolution popped up. With questions. Lots and lots of questions. Seriously, I just want to send you an email not sign up for a dating service. So yeah . . . that didn’t happen either. I get a little hedgy when some automated service starts asking questions about my server.
Okay, so here’s what I did do (because we’re all in this together folks.) I called the phone number listed on the artist’s site and left a message saying I seen a knock off of his for sale on eBay and I left them my phone number. (I’m not expecting them to call back. There a good chance they’re thinking I’m a fruit.) But I figured Tennant is a big enough artist who I think has publisher backing, that he might actually pursue it. I mean somebody really outta shut this Chinese factory outlet down. (Or at least force them to be “honest” in their dealings.)
But then again . . . an original Stubbs for a grand total of $58 (including shipping) is kinda hard to pass up.
Be strong Mona . . . Be strong.
Tags: rants
Hmm, selling those as “originals” has got to be illegal, surely? Although, they’re obviously not originals at $58!! Aren’t they better described as reproductions?
It’s an interesting thought you raise though - it’s ok to copy a dead artist but not a living one. I suppose that makes sense. Everyone wants to own a classic, but a living person has got to earn a wage!
Seems to me that if ebay makes it that hard to report a copyright ownership issue that they really don’t want to do anything about counterfeit rip off problems like this — they are probably making too much money from the bad guys to want to kick them all off ebay.
More than once I have found my horse logo designs posted on ebay and other sites, but unless you have money for lawyers I don’t know what can be done. Luckily some people will remove the art once they are confronted.
Hey Undaunted, I hope you’re feeling better.
No they’re actual paintings. It is definitely reproducing existing work, but they are actually applying paint to canvas, so it is technically a “original” painting. From what I’ve read they like print out something on canvas or project. It is basically a glorified paint-by-number. But apparently they look quite good in person. So there you go. That’s how they get the high ranking in customer satisfaction. It is so much easier to copy greatness, than to create greatness from scratch.
As to copying a dead artist, it’s still not okay. I’m sure someone owns the image reproduction rights to the Mona Lisa. (Louvre?) But 75 years after the death of an artist the inherent copyright of the artist become null, unless legal measures are in place. It’s totally wrong to copy others work regardless of living or dead. But why I jumped to action with the living artist is that it definitely cuts into his profits. Not to mention incredibly annoying.
Greetings Joni, I agree that I doubt ebay would want to shut down Honest Darth. I mean 300 listings and I’m sure they are constantly rotated. He must make them a tidy sum even if they do all sell for only $58.
I agree that unless you have the money to pursue things legally it is almost useless to try to stop it. This is why I haven’t gone to the trouble to get anything “officially” copyrighted. I have yet to see my work stolen, but I’m sure it has happened. Have you pursued any course of action when you find someone who has used your work illegally?
We had a guy selling reproductions of Nicks horses on ebay, for like $11! Someone found them and emailed us and we immediately got them shut down, ebay were really good and actually the middle man (in the US) removed other ones of ours and took them down himself. He said he ‘bought’ them in bulk but couldn’t give us any more info than that and im sure he just sold them somewhere else.
The Chinese artists painted from our images from our website but I don’t know how the system works, who finds the images and who organises everything, someone must not understand the word ‘copyright’ and its probably not the guys that actually paint the pictures.
I don’t know what the solution is but I know it will get worse and the market is being saturated with Chinese paintings and its the middle men to blame. I know of a couple of pet portraits websites, both sites promote ‘their paintings’ and I know for a fact they are bought in from china…although customers would not know this!
Hey Melanie,
Since we have a gallery we get all sorts of email from various overseas companies looking to sell their “excellent quality original paintings.” (that’s usually how it’s phrased) I just delete them but I’m sure loads of galleries snap them up. Looking at their price point it’s really hard not to. And I agree, from what I’ve read those who do the painting get paid nominally (of course they couldn’t get paid high wages and still sell the work for nothing.) The “Honest trader” claims their place of origin is China so no doubts there.
I imagine my problem with ebay was trying to report something using their automated system. The more questions I answered the farther I got from the truth. Perhaps had I finished it to the end I could have made it make sense.