Super shitty that Lululemon stole my bike chain art and is selling it on water bottles. My original design (below) was made for The Fox is Black in 2010. It’s probably my most popular image and I’ve been licensing it to make shirts and posters at bike shops in NYC and London. It’s even available as a temporary tattoo thanks to the folks at tattly
It is, I’ll admit, not the most sophisticated of concepts. But it’s origins come from a personal place—falling in love and biking in the city. (Like I said, not the most sophisticated of concepts). Lots of people have turned bike chains into hearts but what makes Lululemon’s especially offensive is that it’s a reprint of my exact drawing—minus a link. I nearly didn’t recognize it without that one link. It’s so *radically* altered. (Note to Lawyers: Sarcasm)
The thing is these companies could just ASK to license art! Most artists would say yes for a very reasonable fee. It’s easy to feel like we can’t do anything about copyright infringement except quietly seethe and troll them on twitter. But, these flagrant violations are seriously abusive and need to be dealt with seriously. I have IP representation and have registered my work with the U.S. Copyright Offices. Will keep you updated.
UPDATE 1: THANKS TO YOU GUYS for tweeting, blogging, and commenting Lululemon has contacted me and wants to correct their mistake. I’m hopeful that we can reach an agreement in short order.
Hey Jennifer. This is a bummer. I went through the same thing last year with Urban Outfitters. I was contacted by Quinn Heraty at http://heratylaw.com/ and she helped sort all this stuff out for me.
they must die
I saw this and thought of you:
http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/photo/dirty-bicycle-chain-shaped-as-a-heart-royalty-free-image/145661152
Since you filed a copyright for the graphic you should be able to release the dogs on those yoga weirdos. Arf!
I TOTALLY recognized that as a Tattly tattoo! It makes me sick to see anyone pirating original designs that don’t belong to them! Would it have killed them to licence it from you? I mean obviously you DO licence. SHAME ON THEM!
I’m trolling the SH** out of the Lululemon Blog for this.
What a bunch of twats
The other crime is that they mark up an existing Specialized “Purist” water bottle 150% and slap a stolen graphic on it and say they “We partnered with Specialized to create a squeezable waterbottle we knew could get us from the start of our climb to the finish line. The Purist™ technology helps to fight against odours, stains and mold so our water stays tasting like water.”
Yes, the folks at lululemon are such innovators. That’s like me printing a company logo on a golf ball and saying I partnered with Titleist to create the best loft and distance in the sport. (SMH)
Good luck with the infringement lawsuit, Jen!
fwiw, i reached out via twitter to lululemon today and they did get back to me. they said that they are reaching out to the artist. i hope so and i hope this can be put right, or as right as it can be.
best of luck.
Sad to see this. It’s possible their designer did this without them knowing, but you should get an apology and some royalties for your work. I sent them a tweet also. They’re at https://twitter.com/lululemon if anyone else wants to call this to their attention.
This really sucks Jennifer. Infringement appears to be picking up in frequency lately. I’m glad we belong to such a supportive, vigilant online community.
Be sure to check out You Thought We Wouldn’t Notice!
http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/
Hey Jennifer,
I know you’re upset and I’m going to get a bunch of hate for this, but they do actually look like different designs. The pins are larger in the Lululemon design, and the links are wider in the middle, and the space between the links is smaller. And while it follows your overall pattern of a spiral, the actual turns the chain takes are different.
While your work is lovely, I think you’d be hard put to prove that someone else didn’t come up with it up on their own, or that the idea is “yours” rather than the specific image.
Best of luck.
Hey Jennifer,
While this is awful, I want to encourage you and other designers here to investigate who is responsible. I’ve noted three occasions this week where a company was sold a design from a wannabe artist, causing the real creator to throw a social networking fit (and rightly so). The CEOs from these companies very publicly stepped forward and apologized, offering to contact them to resolve the issue. If you haven’t heard from them yet with all the flaming, someone internal is likely to blame.
I wish you luck and hope all of us can do our best to make the online community a safe place for both artists and businesses of integrity!