Image courtesy Steve St. Pierre
If you take photos, design logos or posters, draw webcomics – essentially, put your creativity out there online for the world to see – you’ll probably wince when you read about what happened recently to graphic designer Steve St. Pierre.
Last week, I chatted with St. Pierre for a story I was writing for online Ottawa news site OpenFile. (Full disclaimer: When I’m not a mild-mannered arts-and-culture blogger for Apartment613, I take on a secret identity: mild-mannered OpenFile reporter.) St. Pierre – who’s also a member of local band Old Crowns, by the way – was in the Rideau Street Urban Outfitters looking for jeans when a particular t-shirt caught his eye. The shirt just happened to bear a design that was almost an exact replica of one he came up with – the one that appears at the top of this post – two years earlier.
Of course, St. Pierre never granted anyone permission to use the design for commercial purposes. From the article:
“I was kind of mindblown at first,” says St. Pierre, who blogged soon afterwards about his discovery. “As time went on, though, I kind of got a little more angry.”
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Oddly enough, St. Pierre made his discovery only days after a furor erupted on Regretsy over Urban Outfitters’ alleged theft of an Etsy user’s necklace design. The timing’s just a coincidence, he says, but he points out the store is “getting known” for allegedly infringing the rights of independent designers.
“I’m tired of seeing that stuff happen. Designers—and not to get all cheesy—but we’re all in this together. Our work is devalued enough as it is,” says St. Pierre. “When people do stuff like this, it completely cheapens what we do.”
Image courtesy Steve St. Pierre
Initially, the only proof St. Pierre had that the design was his was that another blog had linked to the image back around the time he’d created it. The original file had been destroyed in a hard drive crash, and he’d also deleted the Tumblr blog on which he’d posted it. But then Ottawa OpenFile editor Nick Taylor-Vaisey tracked down this cached image (scroll down a bit to see it) from St. Pierre’s blog – demonstrating that not only had he created the design, but also, amazingly, that he’d thought about turning it into a t-shirt himself.
Over the past few days, the story – while not getting quite the same level of coverage in mainstream media as the pilfered necklace allegations – has been passed around the internet, recently appearing on social news aggregator Reddit. A few days ago, St. Pierre wrote on his new Tumblr blog that he’s getting lawyers to put together a cease-and-desist letter.
So, Apartment613 readers, what do you think? Urban Outfitters certainly appears to strike a chord with some of you – our original scoop that the outlet was coming to the nation’s capital remains, to this day, one of our most read posts. Could a story like St. Pierre’s make you less likely to shop at UO? Or maybe it doesn’t surprise you that major clothing chains are accused of stealing the work of graphic designers? And on a related subject: how do you strive to protect your creative work online? Have you ever had your work taken without your permission? How should artists’ rights be protected in a digital age?
We’d love to hear your thoughts, either on St. Pierre’s experience or on copyright in general. Leave us a comment.
