On Monday I received an email from a friend who had been browsing around Etsy, directing me to a page in a shop. Following the link, I was surprised to be met with this page (link provided to screen shot of store page shown below for reference):

Yep. That’s our nursery. 

The nursery I started from scratch and decorated. the mural I designed and Hand Painted onto the wall. The photograph I took when the room was featured on Ohdeedoh. And low and behold, I now find that those very trees (which were critiqued as looking dead and stark by Ohdeedoh readers) are belligerently copied with no attempts to modify or alter the context, just flat out claimed as this person’s own design. Plus, having the gull to use my very own original photograph to sell the ‘product’ which rights never belonged to them in the first place. 

I am all for using the tools and media of the Internet, blogs and websites for sharing of design work and inspiring one another, spurring on others to create and make things that are beautiful and well designed. But this, my friends, far FAR crosses the line. Now there are about a dozen people out there who have my very same (well, a somewhat poorly executed mocking of mine) design, without credit, permission or reference back to me, the original artist and rightful owner of the design, imagery and documentation of my work. Additionally, this person has decided to manipulate my image and Photoshop a new design into the background behind the crib.

Mistakenly using this image on another site or blog without reference I could perhaps understand. Entire verbatim MIMICRY of design, content etc. I have to draw the line at. In a few minutes browsing, I came across nearly two dozen examples. I found another image of another familiar nursery, it belongs to a friend (see? the internet isn’t such a big place after all), again her work stolen and manipulated. I stopped there. Thinking perhaps I was being over sensitive, I called on others to view, and the general consensus is I should say something. It’s not often I get really angry, but for this I am.

THIS IS STEALING. STEALING IS WRONG.