One Example of Why Intellectual Property Rights are Important

Thanks to Jillian St. Andre, who sent notice of this case to me via Twitter, I learned about John T. Unger. He’s an artist who has a small studio and with a couple of assistants, turns out some really cool looking industrial sculptures. You can find info about his studio here. I really like the look of his work.

Turns out, so did another guy. A guy who is grinding out similar looking stuff on an industrial scale. John started hearing about their work being confused one for the other. John, being smart, had filed for copyright on his work with the copyright office. He sent the infringer a cease and desist notice, and followed-up as any of us would when protecting our own property.

And the infringer, with deeper pockets, turned around and sued John in an effort to get his copyrights thrown out.

John’s a fighter, and he asking for help. If you visit his site, you have a great opportunity to pledge a little money or a lot to fund his fight against someone who is stealing his property. If you check the comments section of his blog where he talks about the case, folks report that his is not the first time this same sort of tactic has been tried, where a corporation sues a little guy, knowing that to defend himself the little guy will likely go bankrupt. I’ve always hated the second iteration of the Golden Rule: the guy with the gold makes the rules, and this is certainly an instance where that’s coming into play.

Me, I pledged. I figure three of his dancing flame sculptures will actually look good in my fireplace, since I never light a fire in there anyway. If you can help with money, please do. If you can’t, at least link to this blog or John’s website and get the word out. John’s got his own business, he has employees and a family, and is a good guy. The coolest thing about the internet and the communities here is that we can make a difference just by pitching in a little here and there.