The artists are launching a cry of alarm

Photo courtesy
Elise Genest poses in front of his canvas, The guardians, with, on his computer, unauthorized copies on sale on AliExpress.

Francis Halin and
Sandra Godin

Thursday, march 8, 2018 00:00

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Thursday, march 8, 2018 00:00

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The work of québec artists whose works are plagiarized and then sold to the international e-commerce sites are launching a cry of alarm. Slightly modified or outright copied, their work can be found on sites like Amazon, ebay, AliExpress and Wish, without a single penny being paid.

“It is outright theft,” says the painter of Quebec, Elise Genest, whose works, paintings depicting horses, have been copied and are sold on several sites to trade online.

She saw her painting titled The guardians on the site AliExpress, a platform similar to Amazon, based in China, which would have nearly 500 million users in the world.

His canvas, of a value of 3200 $ sold for 100 $, shipping included.

Some of his works are also for sale on Wish, another platform for online trade, based in the United States, but whose products are made in China.

On Amazon, it has found cases of phones with his works as an illustration.

Helpless

The steps to do to remove the copies are time-consuming. “Just to ask Amazon to remove a single product, I for a day of steps. It is several hours of work and documents to send to do to remove a product “, she says.

Elise Genest is known internationally thanks to the web, “I am grateful,” she said. But she is powerless in front of these giants of e-commerce that facilitate the sale of reproductions and derivatives of his works.

A complex process

It is “complex” and “costly” to enforce its rights in another country, confirms Pierre Trudel, professor at the Université de Montréal in intellectual property law, among others.

It is necessary to call in a law firm specialized in international law, he suggests, who ” works with both an antenna in China, and which is able to give the time just because they have a knowledge on the field. “

The cost of such an undertaking is often a deterrent.

“These are significant costs,” he said. It is this kind of burden that one has when one wants to protect the intellectual property rights in a country. “

Not an isolated case

The original work by Isabelle Desrochers (left), the works of Isabelle Desrochers are transformed into paint diamond on Aliexpress. The original is worth between 600 $ and 2000 $.

Quebec painter Isabelle Desrochers lives in a similar situation. His works of naive art are transformed, on AliExpress, painting in diamond, which consists of buying a picture with small beads to glue, to reproduce it as well. It is “a scourge,” she said.

Same sound of bell on the side of Laurie Marois, a painter, also a native of Quebec.

The original work of Laurie Marois (left), the canvas of Laurie Marois sells for 19,99 $ on society6. The original is worth about 1800 $.

She has recently discovered that the site society6.com sells reproductions of his paintings for $ 19.99 (but also derived products such as duvet covers and sweaters.

She has tried to contact society6 to do to remove the copy of his canvas, without success. The form of complaint for the infringement of the intellectual property that it has completed, on the website of the merchant, remained without response.

She is also the face of AliExpress where reproductions of his works are sold at very low prices.

Elise Genest, insists however on the fact that buyers also have their share of responsibility. “It is the consumer who decides and who embarks in there “, she said.

To the right, the original work of Céline Brodeur, and to the left, the reproduction that she has found it for sale on a site in quebec to 149 $.

A SOPHISTICATED TECHNICAL

The sellers of reproductions illegal to take photos of the works that are often available on the personal website of artists and use a software to remove the filters applied to the photos to protect them. They can then sell prints at a low price, or derivative products on different e-commerce platforms.

WHAT THEY SAID

“I have lived such stories in relation to reproduction, and it took me to put less energy over the past year. I was totally exhausted. “

– Laurie Marois

“I put aside this problem to continue my route of not having the courage to go in front and lose all my energy in this fight. “

– Isabelle Desrochers

“This is a full-time job to fight against them and I am unable to. I decided to put my energy into my creation instead.

– Elise Genest

“I don’t want to embark on the judicial process because it is too expensive. “

– Vladimir Davydov

eBay sells a software to copy his works

The wood carver from Quebec, Vladimir Davydov has fallen to the bottom of his chair the day he saw that you could buy a software to copy his works for $ 20 on eBay.

“One of my subscribers, Facebook told me :” Vladmir, I have seen on eBay something that will surely interest you ” . I clicked, and I saw my coins. It has been a shock, ” he says.

Basically, a seller on eBay sells cheap a program that allows the purchaser to perfectly reproduce his sculpture with a machine, a bit like a 3D printer. In just a few clicks, his work can be endlessly duplicated, and resold.

A hurtful situation for the québécois artist. “When you see that your works are copied 100 %, without your permission, it’s still shocking,” he adds.

Financial losses

In addition to interfering with its creation, these “machine copy” will end up hurting the portfolio of the artist. “If the cases multiply, it is sure that I will lose money and that it will have an economic impact, the sharing there.

For example, it took no less than 60 hours of work to carve on wood, his work hummingbird (pictured), which is why it sells for 2200 $. Today, for a pittance, the “software copier” does the work all alone.

As a result, the sellers make substantial profits.

Before, the quebec artist did not too much to see sculptors imitate his works by hand. He did not see as a bad thing that these apprentices use it to learn the craft, but the story took another turn.

Fault shared

Mr Davydov refused, however, to throw stones at eBay or other trading platforms. “This is not really the platform that is responsible. It is the people who use them to make it. If this was not eBay, it would be another platform, ” says-t it.

The artist insists : consumers, sellers, and platforms are all as responsible as each other for this situation. He acknowledges, however, that the merchants of the giants of the web “don’t make enough efforts to stop it”

In the end, Vladimir Davydov prefer to see the good side of the medal. “Myself, I earn my living thanks to these platforms,” concludes the artist who sells his works on the web.

The web giants are fighting

The web giants are holding their own to enrich themselves by selling to profit of the works copied by québec artists on their backs.

“This is not necessarily a problem specific to eBay. It concerns the whole of the market. This type of incident can happen absolutely anywhere, ” defends himself the spokesperson of eBay Canada Camille Kowalewski interview in
Log.

Ms. Kowalewski ensures that copyright is important to the company. “Absolutely, it’s included in our policies “, hastens to add the voice of a multinational corporation valued at $ 57 billion.

Stores closed

Even the sound of a bell at Alibaba (who owns AliExpress). The chinese giant whose valuation amounted to more than $ 626 billion underlines that it has closed more than 230 000 retail stores as a result of violations of intellectual property between September 2016 and August 2017.

“In recent years, we have introduced new measures and new technologies to improve the protections we can offer,” shares its head of external affairs Brion Tingle in a statement by e-mail.

Society6 we returned, also by e-mail, to its policy on intellectual property, saying they have a “zero tolerance” approach to copyright infringement.

Wish has not responded to our interview request.

Large-absent

Amazon declined our request for an interview by the mouth of his public relations firm, National.

The online trading website which has over half a million employees has not been able to find someone to answer the question : “What think Amazon in the work of artists and artisans in quebec which is taken without their permission and sold it at a profit on Amazon ? “reflecting a” lack of clarity “.

Remember that in Québec, the average annual salary of an artist is $ 33,000, according to the latest data from the Observatoire de la culture et des communications du Québec, 2010.

In comparison, the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is the richest man in the world, with a fortune of 144 billion $.