That's Church: For an issue that shouldn’t have really had a clear winner or loser, The Cultural Trust has done a bang-up job of mucking up its little tiff with the Toonseum’s Joe Wos to the point that guess what? The Toonseum is coming out the winner.
Good job good effort, Cultural Trust.
Back to the beginning.
10 comments:
Too bad for The Cultural Trust. Seems like a pretty big overreaction for something that is not that big a deal. I understand they want to maximize their profits by preventing copycat merchandise, but I feel they should have done their homework on the situation this time around. It sounds Joe Wos has a highly legitimate reason for also producing rubber duck shirts! This seems like a stain on the Cultural Trust's stellar reputation. I hope they resolve this nicely!
Hopefully I can go see the The Rubber Duck this weekend..
Can I just say that this article is hilarious! This was a really fun read and I really want to go see The Rubber Duck because it is adorable and everyone should see a giant rubber ducky!!!! The artist definitely achieved his goal to make people happy. Who can resist the edges of their lips from turning even slightly at the site of this glorious piece! I think The Cultural Trust had a point of saying, hey look, your making money off of someone else's work. Even if the artist is already making tons of money, it's not right to use his work to better your own gain.
But maybe Toonseum wasn't! They are having a rubber duck exhibition of their own!
Like Ben said, I hope everything gets resolved because honestly, the rubber ducky was made to bring joy not hate!
I am surprised that the cultural trust approached this situation in the way they did. A mentor of mine said that any organization should write emails as if the content will appear on the front page of the news paper. This is a good example of an organization not anticipating the public reaction to their behavior. I feel that there is no other way this could have played out. It was too good of a story about the little guy standing up against unfair treatment. The situation was begging for the article that was written about it.
The whole situation is hilarious, and the article brought me just as much joy as the duck would have.
This is so petty. Also another demonstration of how out of control copyright has gotten. Its unbelievable that the Trust would try and claim some sort of ownership of the concept of a rubberducky. A big fan of rubberduckies myself, I have a collection of over 300 accumulated over the years. I also have a number of rubberducky shirts. I am super excited to see the big duck downtown but the trust certainly has no right to control rubberducky sales now that they have a big one. I'm stunned how childish they are being.
This article made my day. The sarcasm really made me want to see THE RUBBER DUCK even more!! I definitely agree with the article. The Cultural Trust really overreacted to the shirts made by the Toonseum. The Rubber Duck project and the Toonseum are both institutions that are trying to bring the arts back to Pittsburgh. It would have been nice for the Cultural trust to put their ego aside and maybe work with the Toonseum to promote the Duck. I think if their reaction would not have been so accusatory and negative, a partnership could have been formed, helping both organizations. However, the initial response just helped the shirts gain even more attention. In the end, the Rubber Duck is really for the people of Pittsburgh. It seems as if the Cultural Trust temporarily forgot that and looked at the project in a more egotistical light.
As people above me have mentioned, here's an example of copyright and ownership laws and assumed rules getting out of hand. The article has a good point that the Trust probably should have just asked the Toonseum to change the image of the duck so that it wasn't as similar to the giant 30-foot one currently floating downtown, and then there would have been no issue. However, in the age of the internet and blogs, they should have assumed that something like this would get out, leading to a much bigger problem. Simply because they persisted in fighting something that wasn't a huge deal and wasn't really going to dramatically affect sales of the "official" merchandise, it's starting to become a nationally-known conflict because everyone is excited about the duck coming to the US. It's awesome that Pittsburgh is the first city to host the duck in the US, but now the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust has gotten its name on the national stage for something that seems to everyone else to be petty and kind of bullying.
This is hilarious, but also really infuriating. Kind of a laugh/cry/rage situation. It's a rubber duck. Is Sesame St. going after all of their butts? No.
I also think it's really whiny of the Cultural Trust to bring up all the time and money they've put into bringing the duck here. The Toonseum also spent time and money to bring their rubber duck exhibit and though the timing was no doubt intentional, that's what museums do, find culturally relevant things to exhibit.
I don't know, it almost seems like this whole thing is manufactured by a secret joint effort between the two organizations to give the Toonseum more exposure. I hope that's what it is, because this is absurd.
Ok, can I just say, that as a member of the community who as actually gone and seen the duck, that this article just makes me really mad? Who the heck cares about the money or politics or and of that other bureaucratic crap. I went to see it with my parents yesterday and it was an all out amazing experience. There were literally thousands of people there, ranging from the age of infant to elderly, and every single person there, my family and my self included, had the biggest smile on their face and was either so exited, or in complete awe, or both. I don't care what people say. Nothing, even words, should try to take that away from any city. Even just seeing all of those happy little kids clothing their very own duck just completely made my day. So anyone who as any of the slightest negative feelings about the duck, should just go see it and that should sufficiently shut them up.
This article is really funny. But its also sort of sad. Personally, I think that people building off of other's ideas is a cool part of public art. Taking someone else's idea and making something inspired by it should be a good thing. I think that the Cultural Trust should be excited that more people want to be involved in the Rubber Duck project. Isn't the point of the Cultural Trust to encourage more art in Pittsburgh.
But even if the Cultural Trust doesn't feel this way, I don't think its really worth fighting Joe Wos on. How much is he really taking from the sales of the official rubber duck merchandise? Probably not very much. And really, this shouldn't be about money.
I went to see this giant duck this Friday and it is very surprising to see that there is a dispute about copyright going on. Although watching this installation was amazing and intriguing, I think arguing on copyright is so trivial. Doesn't every rubber duck look like or similar to that? Also, looking at inspiration that Joe got, I guess giant rubber duck is not even original concept. I think being collaborative and helping each other is what the Trust should learn. What would be the disadvantage that the Trust will get by allowing Joe to sell his t-shirt? Probably nothing. Instead there could be a advantage because people who wear those shirts will advertise the installation and more people will go see it. I hope that instead of being petty, the Trust should only focus on entertaining people in Pittsburgh.
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