Unbelievable, really...

Brit designers make Swedish site pull unlicensed pictures
Thursday, 12 January 2012

British latex designers have persuaded a newly launched online retailer in Sweden to take down scores of pirated images it was using to promote its business.

As the name Ms-Celebrity.com suggests, the Swedish site focuses on offering latex outfits as worn by the numerous celebrities that, until yesterday, were featured on the site. The USP evidently being that, if you’re an admirer of, say Katy Perry, here’s your chance to own a custom-made latex outfit just like she wears.

Robin Archer, owner/designer at House of Harlot, e-mailed the Gothenburg-based company on Tuesday complaining about its unlicensed use of numerous copyright images and copyright designs belonging to House of Harlot, and threatening legal action if they were not removed.

Yesterday Robin received an initial response from the website owner, Matthias Nyberg, explaining that the images in question were found by browsing Google Images and did not carry any information about the original manufacturers of the garments depicted.

Nyberg immediately offered to take down any images Archer owned the rights to, along with those of any other copyright owner who contacted him. He claimed that the images on the site were “only meant to give our customers a better idea of what is possible to create”. He also asserted that the garments he sold were not “perfect” copies and that they were, in fact “perfectly legal replicas”. He went on to state that he believed it was “practically impossible to copyright a piece of clothing”.

In a reply circulated to a number of other well-known designers and members of the fetish media, Archer went to some lengths to explain to Mr Nyberg why he was “completely mistaken” about the intellectual property rights of garment design, and outlined the changes in European law that now make it much easier for designers to legally pursue those who copy their work.

He added that he could identify the origin of nearly all the designs offered on Ms-Celebrity.com and was in the process of informing all the original designers and manufacturers, as well as various celebrities he knew whose images were also being used without licence.

Yesterday (Wednesday) other designers took up Archer’s suggestion to look at the Swedish site, and as a result, among those also soon demanding removal of images was Atsuko Kudo — who found half a dozen images of her designs there. The net result of all this British effort was that by Wednesday evening, every single latex garment image had vanished from inside the site, leaving a string of “not found” URLs between the home page and the ordering info section.

In an e-mail the same evening to everyone originally copied in by Robin, Matthias Nyberg confirmed he had removed all unlicensed images, while reiterating that any breach of copyright was unintended. He explained that he had been in the fetish scene for 20 years, knew who most of the designers were and was a big fan of their work.

He added: “It was never our intention to hurt your business in any way. Nor was it our intention to pass off any of your designs as ours. I hope that you will not try to slander us because of this incident.” If by this he means “please don’t tell anyone what we did”, we at The Fetishistas think it’s rather important that people know when and where copyright breaches are occurring, and that anyone tempted to follow a similar path understands the potential consequences under European law.

Having started out doing the wrong thing, Mr Nyberg has now done the right thing, and we commend him for that, and indeed for the speed with which he acted when he received the designers’ complaints. But we can’t help wondering: what will he do now for product pictures?

I find it hard to believe that someone that 'had been in the fetish scene for 20 years' wouldn't have some idea how copyright or the Internet works.  A 'kinda looks like this' depiction of their creations doesn't scream professionalism or business savvy either.  At least he took them down when he was fingered.  One only hopes he isn't just shilling Chinese knockoffs because that would just make this situation twice as sad.  It's must be frustrating for the fetish design houses like House of Harlot and designers like Kudo to have to spend inordinate amounts of their time protecting their artistic property from thieves that claim it as their own on the Internet, when they could be actually producing the newest, greatest latex design.  And of course, this isn't just limited to latex fashion, but to the entire fashion industry...