When Los Angeles based visual artist Tuesday Bassen noticed that her original artwork was being stolen by the fashion brand Zara for its designs, she put up a list of her stolen works on the social media. She also sent a legal notice to the worldwide fashion giant.
Zara's reply to her legal notice was far from apologetic.
Bassen, who is an award-winning illustrator with a clientele that includes Playboy, The New Yorker, United Nations, Nike, Adidas, received a cold shoulder from Zara's legal team. According to Bassen, "Zara's lawyers are literally saying I have no base because I'm an indie artist and they're a major corporation."
.@Zara's lawyers are literally saying I have no base because I'm an indie artist and they're a major corporation. pic.twitter.com/vZNAV2l1vN — Tuesday Bassen (@tuesdaybassen) July 19, 2016
Zara's reply was "We reject your claims here for reasons similar to those stated above: the lack of distinctiveness of your client's purported designs makes it very hard to see how a significant part of the population anywhere in the world would associate the signs with Tuesday Bassen. In our firm view, and being fully aware of the 3rd party notifications that you have brought to our attention. Please note that such notifications amount to a handful of complaints only...millions of users worldwide visit the respective websites monthly (Zara: 98,000.000 average monthly visits last year, Bershka: 15,000.000 average monthly visits last year), the figures clearly put those notifications into sharp perspective.
"I'm disheartened that they essentially replied with 'it doesn't matter, because we're gigantic and you're little, so next to no one knows we even copied this'" Bassen said to the Daily Mail.
