Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Sitting in a bubble-filled tub on Sesame Street, Ernie spawned generations of warm and fuzzy feelings when he crooned, "Rubber ducky, you're the one."
But whether there will be only one rubber ducky for sale on the streets of Pittsburgh is an issue generating nothing of the sort.
On Friday, a 40-foot-tall rubber duck will float into Pittsburgh waterways, marking the beginning of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Pittsburgh Festival of Firsts.
10 comments:
First off, I want to say how cool it is that there is going to be a giant rubber duck floating in the river. That in of itself is just awesome! Secondly, I have mixed emotions on the whole t-shirt issue. I think that the shirt is pretty cool, and I would love to get one. However, I think that it is kind of obnoxious of both parties that are involved to be creating such a big debate. My advice is that they should work together to generate some wicked merchandise to fund public art instillations like this.
This whole argument seems to be a little bit silly, essentially it is over a rubber ducky and merchandise of it. Seems to me like some child's play. Overall any of the merchandise is a positive promotion for the festival of firsts and I believe that is the larger issue to be discussed. There is this amazing thing that will be happening in Pittsburgh and the popular news on it is the giant rubber ducky and the merchandise to go with it. Both parties should combine there efforts to promote the festival and spend less time arguing over who gets to sell rubber ducky related items.
While I am sympathetic about Mr. Hofman's creative intellectual property, I do think it's okay to sell merchandise in spired by his work. Yes, selling a shirt with a replica of the duck would be infringing on his copyright. However I think the point of the duck being brought here was to enliven the arts scene in Pittsburgh, which also means inspiring local artists with the art being brought here. If the Cultural Trust is squashing what smaller artists are doing, then they are aren't really fulfilling their purpose of cultural awareness. The Trust should be able to sell merchandise too, to make up for what they paid to bring the duck, but that doesn't other artists shouldn't be allowed to get something out of it for themselves.
After further researching this issue, I have determined that most of the support is behind Joe Wos, and the Toonseum. I am conflicted on where I stand. In some ways, I think that Joe Wos should have, out of common courtesy, reached out to the Cultural Trust before creating and selling the tee-shirts. The Cultural Trust did put in the time and money to get the Rubber Duck Project to come to Pittsburgh, and while it may be nice for other arts organizations in Pittsburgh to help promote the events in the Festival of Firsts, Joe Wos should have gotten permission ahead of time to specifically promote the duck. However, after looking further into the issue, I was turned off by the way that the Cultural Trust handled the situation. First of all, the Trust sent Joe Wos an email. Sending emails, nowadays, are probably the most common form of communication in the business world. However, email is not appropriate for resolving certain issues. Joe Wos supposedly even tried to set up an in-person or phone meeting with the administration of the Cultural Trust, and his attempts were not acknowledged in any way by the Trust.
At the same time, I can understand why the Cultural Trust was upset in the first place. From my understanding, the Trust put in a great deal of effort and money in order to get the Rubber Duck Project to Pittsburgh. I am sure the Cultural Trust is aggravated with their own city's arts organizations seemingly trying to profit from a project that is not rightfully theirs to profit from. However, again, from what I have read about the issue, I think the Cultural Trust is not being open-minded enough to Joe Wos' intentions, and it is now resulting in negative publicity for them and their upcoming projects.
It is upsetting and unnecessary for the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to make this sale into such a big deal and to cause such a negative feeling to fall over the imminent arrival of the massive rubber duck. Pittsburgh is incredibly excited for this strange and silly phenomenon, why does the Trust need to put a damper on it? Rubber ducks, as the article mentions, have been around for over one hundred years - it is nothing radical to make a shirt featuring one. There is no attempted replication of this forty foot tall creation, there is merely a friendly, native spirit about the shirts to help people relate this upcoming event to their own locale. The Trust needs to stop being so upright and gain a little more Pittsburgh spirit.
Well isn't all art a copy or inspired by someone else's. So this sounds like some greedy or slightly power hungry people want to have all the fun. I mean come on people think about the duck. What do you think Rubber Duckie wants in his life. The rubber ducky family just wants to bring joy to people all over the world and currently he is about to bring joy to Pittsburgh. WHY CAN'T THEY JUST GET ALONG!!! I really do not think Erinie would approve, Rubbie Duckie is supposed to make bath time FUN and to bring JOY!!! JOY PEOPLE JOY!!!
Because the giant rubber duck is a work of art and is being funded by the Cultural Trust specifically for this event, the work should be treated with the same respect as any other art. It is obvious that the shirts are not merely coincidental; they were created to be sold because of this event. Therefore, just as if the duck were a installation in a museum, it is inappropriate for others to directly profit from the depiction of the work.
Additionally, the fact that the article's link has "feathers ruffled" in it is very nice.
I am in complete agreement with Mr. Wos. A rubber duck is a rubber duck. It is not an image or object owned by the artist or Cultural Trust. If the Cultural Trust is having issues with other people using their image, is it not ok for the largest rubber duck manufacturer to tell the Cultural Trust and the Artist to stop using their image? I know that there are so many knock off products sold just outside the gates of Disneyland and while Disney no way encourages these sales, they recognize they exist and build a better product. I think the Cultural Trust is just miffed they don't have a monopoly. I think they need to just embrace that other rubber duck products will be sold and move on.
I took a trip to visit the duck last night, and directly across from where the inflatable colossus is tied up, there is a booth selling official merchandise. The amount of money that that booth alone is going to make is probably quite substantial. On the other hand, before the conflagration between Mr. Wos and the cultural trust went viral, Mr. Wos most likely would have sold a very limited quantity of shirts. While I understand that under copyright law the amount of monetary gain is rather inconsequential, it is rather ridiculous that the issue has gotten so out of hand. Rubber ducks have been around for a very long time. The artist who created the giant one currently floating on the river got as much inspiration from the original duck as Mr. Wos did.
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