We hate when global capitalists make profit of sincerely independent things. This also happened to TOSAY IT. Huge American clothing company Forever 21 used the concept of Egor Kraft’s “the Secret of Happiness..” poster to make a sellable t-shirt. We find it offensive not only towards the artists and his copyright, but also towards everyone who liked this intervention. As it has never been done to make any profit the poster was hanged there in a small Swedish city to attract attention of the passers-by to it in order to arise a question why our media and all information delivery means not sharing with us the most important ideas of happiness and the ways to reach it. But instead we always stuffed with the content that is rather distracting us from these questions.
Wikipedia – “Forever 21 is an American chain of clothing retailers with branches in major cities in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East that offers clothing and accessories for young women, men, and teen girls.”
We wrote a letter to the company asking how come did they use it without any permission from the authors, that’s what received as an answer:
FORVER21:
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Mr. Kraft, Your email of April 13, 2012 was forwarded to my attention. Forever 21 takes claims of infringement seriously. To that end, Forever 21 immediately looked into this matter. The item at issue was provided to us by a vendor, and a due diligence was conducted to evaluate this matter. Based on our investigation into the source and origin of the design on the shirt at issue with the vendor, It appears that the vendor independently derived the design in question on the shirt. Contrary to your assertions, your street art was not used as the print for the t-shirt in question. Please note that under United States copyright law, independent creation is permissible. Also, under United States copyright law, access is a required element of an infringement claim, and it appears that the vendor that provided the shirt in question to Forever 21 did not have access to your art in question. We trust this addresses your concern. Sincerely,
Jerry Noh
outh africa online casino slot
Associate Counsel
Forever 21, Inc.Legal Department
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We didn’t feel like getting in the fight with them especially considering that fact that at that moment we were overseas, so we wrote them the following:
TOSAY.IT:
Hello Mr. Noh,
After reading your email and United States copyright law i am still confident thatit appears to be a big demagogy if a vendor had any access to my copyrighted artwork.
As i don’t want to waste my time on disputes and determining the agreements i can suggestyou the following: you can send me a pack of 5 t-shirts (with my phrase) and i will stop makingclaims about the issue. This is an easy solution and i hope you find it so too.Looking forward to hear from you soon.
Regards,
Egor
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In fact we just wanted to present these t-shirts to our friends and forget about this unpleasant issue, but Mr. Now Never answered us back. Well, the company is known for stealing and i guess there’s not much we can we do against such a huge corporation. Shame!