Artwork Concerns

First, you, Helen, Amber, Chessie, etc. are Windstone related artists as far as I am concerned (maybe less so in Amber’s case) and I see nothing wrong with promoting anything you do as long as it isn’t creating your own line of sculpture. That was the whole intent of getting you involved. To try to get your name out there in a positive way that would help your career. Whatever you guys do in the way of art comes back to Windstone in enthusiasm to collect your Windstone pieces. What these artists like Keeperoftheflocks and Purplecat are doing is to try and build businesses on the back of Windstone and get a free ticket to sales. That’s just not right and I think that most people would never have the nerve to go there.

I think Melody is making a huge mistake in interacting with Purplecat and not just sending her a lawsuit. I think a whole lot of entitlement issues and manipulation is being passed off as misunderstanding.

We do need to define a policy and I would think that the line for posting artwork would simply be that no commercial artwork posting is allowed. We could create a separate site for non-sculpture commercial work such as graphic novels, drawings, and paintings but even that can be hard to retract if we should start publishing stuff again, so it’s probably a bad idea. Maybe one of a kinds only?

Jennifer why don’t you go ahead and post something to the effect of what you said about your size and need to be somewhat protective. Not that Disney would put up with anything of the sort either.

Wait, huh? OOAKs are ok, things not made in quantity are not? If something isn’t made in quantity, isn’t it an OOAK?

This is such a sticky subject. And there’s always a lot of high emotion flying around whenever it gets drug up.

This sort of thing has boiled up several times on the forum now, and each time it seems to make people angry and drive them away. There has been the issue of painting PYOs with the gold detailing, the issue of airbrushing the PYOs and having them look ‘too much like production pieces,’ the issue of repaints, and now what people see as Windstone picking on a couple of individuals suddenly after allowing what they’re being ‘punished’ for go on for so long.

I can absolutely see both sides on this issue. I absolutely understand that Windstone needs to protect itself, and not really from these small time artists trying to kick off and get their start, but from big guys that might cause trouble later – because you can’t allow a precedent to be set. I understand this. But looking at it from the forum member’s point of view, Windstone is starting to look pretty ungracious. These people aren’t trying to undermine the company. They’re small time artists who have been inspired by Melody and who are trying to make their own dreams of making a living off of their art realized. They aren’t trying to compete, but they’ve gathered here at the forum with like minds and found their customer base, because lets face it – what kind of artists and fans alike are you going to attract here? Mostly fantasy.

While this has natural potential for competativeness, I think the way this is being handled – or at least the way it’s handling is being perceived – is a lot more hurtful to Windstone than it is helpful. You’ve created a community, and what’s going on now is creating a lot of dissent and misunderstanding. Windstone isn’t being seen as an encouraging force for artists and art, it’s being seen as a bully overly protective of things that most of these people just don’t see as Windstone having valid claim on.

I’m not saying that Windstone shouldn’t protect what it’s fought so long and hard to keep. But I think we need to put some quick and serious work into making the forum seem like a more welcoming and encouraging place, for artists and art fans alike. The general art forum is one of the gems of this community – people have come to see it as a place where creativity is nutured – I think the encouragment Melody has displayed to budding artists on the forum has endeared the company to a lot of people, and they’re seeing this as a confusing contradiction.

These artists aren’t big companies. Slapping them with a lawsuit, in my opinion, is harsh and unnecessary. Though I agree that Melody’s relationship with Purplecat has allowed the particular problems with her to escalate far beyond what they should have been. I think problems and people like this need something inbetween John and Melody – a balance between just letting them keep it up and threatening a lawsuit.

For the forum, I think it might be helpful if the actual individual problems that you’ve had with Purple cat and Keeproftheflocks are explained, with specific examples of what they’ve done that isn’t alright. Because a lot of people weren’t even aware there was any problem, and without any explanation of what’s happened, they just see artists leaving the forum and threads being removed for reasons not clearly explained.
And as Jen says, if there are things that you want forbidden on the forum, rules need to be written up quickly and clearly and posted and pointed out.

I think if you are going to allow solicitation and sale of any artwork (or anything else) on the forum, it should be all or nothing. I think getting into whether it’s OOAK or semi-mass produced is just going to cause more anger and confusion, even if the boundaries seem clear to you. My own opinion is that selling / advertising shouldn’t be allowed at all, but that artists should be in no way discouraged to show examples of their own art – as Jen said in one of the threads, if there is interest in buying what they share, the artist can continue that dialogue with the interested party in PMs or on their own site.

I think there is A LOT of confusion about what is too close to a Windstone and what is not. And I honestly have to agree with most of them in that some of what is called ‘too close’ seems absolutely ridiculous. Especially combined with things I’ve pointed out to John that I’ve found on ebay – like one particular knock off gargoyle that was almost a straight copy of the roaring sentinal – that were ignored because it wasn’t worth going after. Those are direct ripoffs being sold en mass on ebay – those aren’t worth pursuing, but a few small time artists trying to get themselves going, who are openly in love with Melody and the Windstone company, who keep the community excited with their own works and possibly draw new people in – those people are worth going after when it does nothing much but anger your own fan base??

So I understand both sides, but I think we need to tread carefully here. What are we losing and what are we gaining with this?

Thanks to the both of you for getting this deep into the discussion and giving it so much thought. When Jennifer sent me the thread and said we may have a problem here I looked at it and she was obviously using the forum to solicit sales of her castings both painted and unpainted, calling them Paint Your Own and PYO’s and with magic paint I thought, OK, there may be a trademark issue here as we have been using those terms to market Winstone for quite some time and the public has come to associate them with our products. Those terms were of course used by Keeperoftheflocks because she wanted to leverage our usage into a tool to sell her casts. So I told her that first, the Windstone forum was never intended to become a marketplace for other commercial products un-related to Windstone and also that there was probably a trademark issue in the use of her terminology, particularly PYO and Magic Paint. And that I strongly recommended that she remove any Windstone derived (I don’t remember my exact words) that could be a problem from her website.

I did express the idea of a trademark issue with Jennifer but, in my mind, the primary thing is the misuse of the forum. Why should anybody go nova because they are edited out of a forum where they are a guest and be mad about it and not embarrassed?

You know, there are only a couple of these people who are a problem and boy do they react! The Purplecat person is a serious issue and the way I have come to read it is she is simply manipulating Melody into a position that we will all regret. But she does seem to have a fan base that jump right on board. I have not been following her posts and have not looked at her website so I don’t know the extent of Purplecat’s selling on line or the forum lately. Melody says that she asked her to remove what she was selling on the forum and she did so. But I also sense from her posts on this thread that she is not happy about it. I wasn’t really serious about sending her a lawsuit Helen. But I don’t think that playing her game is productive either.

The Keeper person, on the other hand, has a pretty extensive commercial website (maybe Purplecat does too, I don’t remember) and really ought to understand that it is pretty disrespectful of that artist and her company that she says she idolizes to post what she did. The usual suspects were there in a heartbeat to stir thing up of course. So are they just clueless? Or what? I don’t know. But I do know that every time these things happen there seems to be no explaining anything to any of them as they refuse to listen and then distort the replies and postings. And you guys are completely right. I should know better by now.

So what now? TwoHuberts just called while I was in the middle of this to put in her two cents and offer to help moderate the forum. What do you think? Could she be of use as a moderator? A moderator who is no staff could be a very good thing I would guess and she knows a lot of these people and yet seems to come off as pretty neutral on the forum. I asked her to email the three of us with her thoughts about the hubbub.

I don’t really see the need to ban all sales including original artwork. I would vote for just commercial work that is offered for sale on a website, or in a store or gallery. That’s a pretty understandable definition. I can also see banning all sales but then do you keep them from saying “I intend to sell these” or what?

I need to go feed the troops and will try to address this some more tomorrow when my head clears. well, maybe whether or not my head clears is more correct.

I will second Helen’s opinion of Jennifer! You guys are both rare individuals and I really do feel responsible for dragging you into this.

Maybe, however it is a good time to try and get some communication across about all this. Yes we should probably have had a real set of rules and regulations but then they do sort of work through these things on their own and some of the posts have started to make some sense. I should have done a Paint Your Own search before responding to her as I had no idea that it was in wide use. That was really stupid. But what I was saying was there could be a Trademark issue in her use of terminology that was taken from us and that is true. Trademark rights are perfected by use so I can’t give you a definite answer about the strength of a claim but PYO and Magic Invisible Paint have been used in association with Windstone for some time. When there is a representation that is taken from someone to sell another’s product in that way it is probably, when push comes to shove, illegal. Not as straightforward as copyright but there are certainly claims of unfair competition that one would make. I think it went way beyond rude. That said I probably should have someone else deal with it because, I have to admit, some of these people do piss me off when they do things as blatant as that. Really, I’m very sorry about this.

I think we can turn this into a much needed discussion and get it worked out so they aren’t afraid to post their art.

I don’t know about Laurie either. ???