Naturally, some of our more basic designs can’t be claimed as “original” and I totally understand that. But when a competitor’s store carries ballroom jewelry and ALL of their designs strike a very clear resemblance to ours, then it does make us a little bit upset.
Such is the case with Celsea Ballroom in the UK (http://chelseaballroom.co.uk or also on etsy as “ballroombazaar”).
A few examples:
Of course, we’re flattered that our creative concepts are such a hit but we just feel it is so utterly un-cool for someone to call themselves a “designer” (and even advertise themselves as such) when they just copy other people’s ideas.
They only have a small handful of items so it didn’t feel quite as bad as that time I found that one website in Russia that not only replicated a few of our designs but also stole many of our images and used them for advertising. We try to provide decent quality product photos for our web store and for our own advertising (ideally so our consumers know exactly what they’re going to get), but unfortunately it also makes it so easy for internet jerks to ruin the fun for all of us.