A Brazilian neo-pop artist is suing Apple for ripping off his artwork for the company’s “Start Something New” marketing campaign. Is Apple guilty, or is it just a mistake?
The artist in question is Romero Britto, a 51-year-old artist who has lived in Miami, Florida, since 1989. His work is known for combining pop art, cubism and graffiti art into a style that might best be described as Saturday morning cartoons on acid.
Britto is suing Apple in federal court alongside the Craig & Karl design firm, who Apple licensed artwork from for the campaign. One of the contested images can be seen on Apple’s “Start Something New” webpage. The image shows a cartoonish hand squirting blobs of ink and pattern out of a fingertip. The text below the image reads:
Living on separate continents hasn’t stopped artist duo Craig & Karl from collaborating daily. To create this piece, they traded ideas and sketches over FaceTime and iMessage. As they passed the artwork back and forth online, each artist built upon it using iDraw and Waterlogue on iPad Air 2. The end result reflects both the process and the medium — it’s a vibrant depiction of the creative power we have at our fingertips.
In his lawsuit, Britto does not argue that Apple actually stole his work. Instead, the lawsuit claims Craig & Karl’s work taps into Britto’s artistic language by using “bright colors and repeating patterns.”
“This specific combination of visual elements when taken in its entirety creates a distinctive overall visual impression that is uniquely Britto,” the lawsuit says.
Britto claims that when the campaign was launched, he received congratulations from friends for scoring a client as big as Apple.
It’s true, some of Craig & Karl’s artwork looks similar to Britto’s, but frankly, Britto’s going to have his work cut out for him proving that another designer using similar colors and patterns is a violation of the law. It is very, very difficult to prove claims of design theft.
We’ll keep you posted as this lawsuit develops.
Source: San Jose Mercury News
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
9 responses to “Apple gets sued for licensing allegedly plagiarized art”
What is this? All of the artworks look like they were drawn by Picasso to me. Also, I don’t think you can sue someone for employing an art style. What an attention seeker.
I thought it was similar to Britto at first gloss (at a distance) but his work features bolder outlines and, since he reached his peak of popularity/marketing *years ago,* his signature/TT has figured prominently.
I’m NOT a fan, so I really doubt he/his connosieurs were misled.
This does remind me of the whole ’rounded rectangle’ design kerfuffle but, filling linework with silly patterns harkens back to MacPaint’s bucket tool. Countersuit ahoy?
Well if apple can sue for trade dress then who’s to say this guy can’t sue for the same concept?
Normally, as an artist, I’m with the artist on this. But this is BS. That would mean every child in history could be sued by Picasso’s heirs because they are drawing like him. (or vice-versa :)
The art is similar, but so what? Should we also go after ever writer who writes about a poverty stricken boy who stands up to evil and becomes the hero?
Hey, Romero Britto, if you are reading this.. step off eh?
Stealing others work….just like Apple of old.
I thought that Apple art was done by Britto myself. This will be a tough one for Craig&Karl due to Britto’s history in licensing work for commercial use – which he has done for decades at a high level. It puts this outside of the typical conversation about copying artwork. Once there is a commercial interest outside of “fine art”, all bets are off and Britto could have a strong case here. That being said, I think Craig&Karl got too close in their appropriation of this style. As commercial artists, it’s nearly impossible that they are oblivious to Britto. Side by side, it’s close enough for a court to determine that Britto’s style has significant commercial value, and that Craig&Karl may have found that a similar style brought them more success than previous styles. At that point, somebody will just write a check. Worse however is that this may tarnish Craig&Karl’s image if past and future clients decide that their works were basically knockoffs that a client may not have been aware of – especially if Britto wins.
I thought it was a Britto work, and that Apple had him do it on a computer or iPad. Unfortunately, Britto is a pretty well known artist who does enough licensing to move this out of fine-art territory and into commercial trade-dress territory. And unfortunately, Craig&Karl are commercial artists which makes this much more of a lawsuit about business and commerce, rather than style. Side by side, the similarities are close enough that I’d say Britto has a shot. My question really is, how did these other guys do work that is so incredibly similar to another person, and not think think something like this would happen eventually?
So can art styles and techniques be copyrighted? I think this is too broad to be plagerized. I mean if they used his artwork sure but his technique… No. What’s next, artist licensing techniques?