Imitation is the greatest form of flattery right? Yeah maybe, but it’s still kind of annoying when you find it’s happening to you! “Our wood has been comprimised!” (That’s a Teri quote BTW … I give proper credit …)

If you’re not familiar with our “New Wave Gothic” furniture line, we’ve been developing a unique style by combining Gothic, Renaissance, Tudor, Medieval, Mission, maybe some country – and a little of our own twist to create an original design. We apparently succeeded … we’ve been spoofed!

Umm – Can you say The Images & Designs above are the Property of Artisans of the Valley – All Rights Reserved? … We knew you could!

The power of the web – the images, the detail, the data – all great to portray your work online reaching and we’re all excited to reach a worldwide audience. Then one day one of your friends is surfing the web and pings you back with a link … and you find … your design reverse engineered and manifested in living color half way around the world! This monster fake was built in Thailand …

Can you say “Knock-off?” …. We knew you could …

Now – I guess it does answer the question of “How big can you build your gothic table?” … Well, we can build it REALLY REALLY big … large enough to fill the dining room of a castle. This really is our design, a few minor tweaks, a couple simple changes, but … stand back and take a good look. Do we entagle into international copywrite infringement battles or just tips our hats and say nice job and steal back the modificaitons they made to our fretwork panels? One thing that should be made very clear this knock-off is defiately lacking our signatures, and it wasn’t made in the USA  …. so … whatever the new owner paid for this table they didn’t get an investment … they got a table.

The moral of the story is – what’s online becomes fair game for anyone and everyone to pillage. Publicity is fantastic – but beware of the risks that come with online fame as not only will your clients find you but so will the rest of the world!