This is why clothing is branded. You can make a T shirt with 'Hello World' on it and anyone can copy that, with a different font not even being necessary. However, if you don't go for the 'Hello World' and have your brand name on the T shirt then anyone copying it will have some lawyers to deal with (potentially). Therefore the only things you can sell in fashion retail that are not going to be blatantly ripped off are things with a brand name or logo. Hence our tediously branded clothes.

There is the other matter of counterfeit goods, if you make a T shirt and put three stripes on it and stitch 'Adidas' on there then that is a counterfeit. In the examples above where Zara have stolen someone's hard work, this is definitely copying, not counterfeiting.

So long as nobody is counterfeiting stuff then all is good. I also think a lot of artists would be delighted if Zara stole their ideas, at least they get some validation which is better than being ignored.

As an artist who is friends with people who've had their work ripped off by companies like Zara, I can assure you that we would rather be ignored. I'm sure out on the street, you'd rather be left alone than be mugged because you have a nice looking watch.

From my perspective, knowing some photographers, it's more like a tension (and of course there are exceptions) but a good portion want the attention and want the benefits of it, but also dislike the darker parts that attention brings --like copying and use without permission. But without the attention they are not in demand.

Few do it for its own sake in anonymity (though there have been a few).

As an aside, there are many amateur photographers who don't care about the money because for them it's a hobby and put stuff up as CC and some professional photographers hate that because agencies will use a CC instead of paying for a commissioned work (depending on use and license).

So, basically, it's akin to when you liked a music artist but didn't want them to become famous so you could keep the artist to your cool circle of friends but of course the artists wanted to become better known so they could actually make some money to cover the bills and then you got to call them sell-out and poseurs.

It's really not anything like either of those scenarios. Zara (and many companies like them) like to rip off working artists because its essentially already been market tested by the trend leaders from which they take their cues.

There are degrees of success in any form of commercial art, and the people companies like to rip off are not people pittering away in obscurity or hobbyists. Instead, it's those that are appealing enough to get by and have an audience, but with not enough resources to mount a significant legal defense to their out-and-out thievery. If you look into the Zara case, these are the exact circumstances of the illustrators from whom they're stealing work.

I understand that audience members have different kinds of social relationships with works of art, but you should trust artists when we say we don't want or need wealthy conglomerates stealing our work. In the age of the internet, we have tools to get our work out there (thanks to those on this site that work on building these tools). And if large companies want to find and pay to work with us, well, that's even easier than ever too.

> So long as nobody is counterfeiting stuff then all is good. I also think a lot of artists would be delighted if Zara stole their ideas, at least they get some validation which is better than being ignored.

Anthony Clark got ripped off by Little Caesar's just yesterday and is a long way away from 'delighted': https://twitter.com/nedroid?lang=en

Commercial artist don't need validation. They are usually employed as artists as their day jobs and make art in other mediums for side projects. This is like windows including a cracked version of sublime text and saying well at least you know someone likes your work.

If it's any consolation, non "indie" artists including large clothing manufacturers also maintain a baseline lividness usually reserved in the industry for counterfeiters.