Oh. Em. Gee.
You guys, You guys are THE GREATEST! I honestly have no words after last week and if I’m totally honest, I still haven’t got my head around it all so if you don’t mind, this weeks post is going to be short but sweet so I can let the last one resinate a while longer and I’ll continue to reply to the messages and comments that are still coming in – THANK YOU!
I just wanted to tell you how extremely grateful I am for your incredible support last week. I was so nervous to publish the post and the week leading up to it was quite difficult but as soon as I hit the ‘publish’ button and took a deep breath, I knew I’d done the right thing. By you reading, sharing and supporting what I had to say meant that something that had been rather upsetting and challenging to me evolved into something so full of love and support I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful that felt. To feel like I’d done the right thing in speaking about it and then to feel so much love in return was unexpected and so very humbling. I can’t thank you enough for your kind words and messages. I’m still getting through them and they mean the absolute world to me. Thank you.
Our toast to you – a normal toast just didn’t seem good enough. Bottoms Up! :p
Copyright and Intellectual property are such huge issues for creative small businesses and when someone and something encroaches on them it can cause so much damage. It’s really important that we take action and discuss this so that it’s not just swept under the rug and ignored. Legal action is often suggested but can be so costly and isn’t often feasible for small businesses (certainly not in a case where they’ll see no return) I’m very lucky to have a few friends in the right places so have used and abused them for advice in the past and on this (and hopefully that’s all I’ll ever need them for in this capacity and we can go back to gin drinking) but I’m well aware that not everyone ‘knows someone’ – Although your response last week was beyond anything I ever imagined, I’m so grateful that you were even the slightest bit interested as I really believe that it’s important we all support each other in these situations and by having reasonable conversations (ideally without finger pointing or bullying) we can raise awareness.
It’s up to us as small businesses to help educate other people. Not everyone knows that you’re the original creator or why that’s important. I know it may seem obvious to us that you shouldn’t copy or buy from someone who’s obvious ripping off other peoples ideas and selling them for less but it’s not fair of us to assume that everyone else GETS that, and thats where we can fairly and reasonably explain and hopefully enlighten people so we get the word out that it’s not cool. What’s cool is buying from the person who put everything into that design. The person who worked tirelessly to create and develop a business and product from scratch that they are proud of. The person who wracks their brain to come up with new, imaginative ideas and totally bloody nails them. That will be the person you want to invest in because they will be the one to come up with the next great idea and their time is more valuable because they’re spending it developing and working, not mimicking.
Crown Pattern will be available soooooon!
Your support last week showed me what an epic difference we can make, each comment, each message was a sign that there are so many of us with unmoving morals, so many that understand how damaging ‘copying’ can be and that it’s OK to speak up about it. You gave me the closure that Janet never had the decency to offer, and by saying ‘that is not OK’ you reminded me that although there will always be Janets in the world, there will always always be more of You. You kind, generous, wonderful, strong and giving humans. Each of you is one in a million and together you are a fucking force, and that is so much more powerful than deceit. You will always be better and stronger and louder than the Janet’s and somehow that makes everything feel so much better.
Thank you friends, for everything you gave me which is probably more than you know (it’s certainly more than I can articulate) I adore you and hope I can do you proud.
Take Care,
L x
P.S Like I can do ‘Short but sweet’… who was I kidding!
