Jennifer sold some of these to her wholesale customers who in turn sold them at a show in Oklahoma last month. Someone bought one at the OK show and had it copied in China and was selling it at a Vegas show for half the price! It's very discouraging to stumble upon a fantastic idea and have it stolen right out from under you. It has happened so fast, we don't know how to deal with it.
I called another jewelry designer here in SA for some insight. She said she's been in business 12 years and hasn't figured out how to stop it. She just continues to design and changes her offerings four to five times a year. Registration/copyright is expensive and following it thru the legal system is time-consuming and also expensive. And by the time we'd "win" one design back, it would be out of season and dozens of others would have been copied.
Charisse also experiences this with her domino jewelry. Domino necklaces aren't proprietary but her designs ARE. And people - even local people - have copied them exactly. Same with Jennifer's jewelry. Even local people who have been asked NOT to copy it, still do. What is our recourse?
Out of the blue, I got a call last month from a woman who wanted to buy 80 of my wine charms for a banquet. I did some research for her, got pricing, gave her a quote. Then two weeks later, she calls back and says they want to make the charms themselves and would I mind sharing who my vendor is?!?! Ridiculous! I told her, reluctantly. I don't think she's going to start selling wine charms herself, but I think it was quite rude to duplicate my work after asking me to go to the trouble of quoting a custom design.
It may be true that there are no original ideas left in the universe, and certainly, jewelry and crafts are not exceptions to this. But if you're going to steal an idea, twist it enough to make it your own.
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