VARA Rights and Intellectual Property Laws

       For a long time I have wanted to talk about VARA rights and intellectual property laws. Every so often there is a bit of hobby drama surrounding someone changing a horse, either in the paintwork or the sculpting, and then either trying to sell it as the work of the original artist or reproduce it as their own work. The phrase "I bought it, I can do what I want with it" usually comes up at these times, and there are a lot of people that defend that. But not only is it a slap in the face to the artist that worked hard to produce the original piece, that now sees it was "spiced up" with some new white markings, or that it was partially resculpted and the plan is to cast it, these things are not OK. It is also not OK to copy the work of another artist and claim it as your own. Or change the work and still say that it was even partially done by the original artist. 

      This is Cloud Dancing. He was a Bold Endeavor resin that I had years ago. His paint was damaged (I don't think my models like that we don't have air conditioning) and I eventually sold him at body price because I did not have the skill to fix him. After awhile I missed him and started looking for another Bold Endeavor. He's an excellent show horse after all. 

         I asked my friend Susan if she happened to have a Bold Endeavor I could buy, she did not, but several months later she gifted me with this horse! She had found a very damaged Bold Endeavor for me, and had Sherry Clayton paint him. I was overwhelmed! As I looked at him I thought he looked so familiar...

     So I looked up photos of Cloud Dancing. It wasn't just close to the same pattern it was THE SAME pattern. HOW??? Well, that's easy. Sherry was the painter of Cloud Dancing, and Susan, knowing this, asked Sherry to paint the new horse for me. Sherry copied HER OWN work, that no longer existed. 

      This is not going to explain VARA or intellectual property laws. I was giving an example of a copied work. This one is OK, Sherry did both horses, and the original didn't even exist anymore. But other copies are not OK. And they keep on happening. Mostly I added photos because blogs are boring without them. But I want to give you a something new today. Liesl Dalpe made a wonderful video that really explained both VARA rights and intellectual properly laws. And why they are so important. I hope you take the time to watch.