Almost three weeks after the company was accused of shamelessly stealing the work of independent designers , Cody Foster & Co has finally released its first statement on the matter to Co.Design. But the Nebraskan tchotchke wholesaler would doubtlessly have been better off keeping its mouth shut.

While admitting that design piracy might have “inadvertently” occurred and that what had been done was “not excusable,” Cody Foster then argues that design piracy isn’t a big deal, happens all the time, and that the real crime here is that its business has been disrupted by the allegations.

Here is Cody Foster & Co’s statement, as released to Co.Design, interspersed with our comments.

Cody Foster & Co. acknowledges that a small number of products in our catalog of more than 1800 items bear strong similarities to ones being sold by others. When this issue first came to our attention in mid-October, we immediately pulled those products from our catalog and offered refunds to any of our customers that asked for them. We deeply regret any harm we may have inadvertently caused to our customers and the artist community at large. We are instituting new processes and procedures to reduce the likelihood that this happens again.

At first glance, Cody Foster’s statement seems to begin on an earnest note, but the wording quickly troubles. The company reveals that instead of contacting artists whose designs were allegedly pirated and working out licensing agreements or financial restitution, Cody Foster has simply pulled the items to resolve the problem: the artists don’t get squat. And even from the first paragraph, Cody Foster is unwilling to promise that this will never happen again, only that they are instituting policies to reduce the likelihood of it happening again.

As we’ll soon see, however, it’s not even clear what Cody Foster means to avert in the future: design piracy, or merely the allegations of it.

Our explanation for how this happened is simple, though not excusable. Unfortunately it occurs regularly in this industry. Documenting “artistic inspiration” for reproduced craft products–particularly for those based on folk designs–is a difficult process and presents a huge challenge for suppliers, artists and retailers alike.

In other words, to Cody Foster, this controversy isn’t an issue of design piracy. It’s a failure to correctly “document” work that was somehow nebulously “inspired” by the designs of independent artists. But such documentation does exist, and it implies a consistent, multi-year campaign of outright design theft.





As we reported three weeks ago, many of the artists alleging design piracy against Cody Foster have records and receipts that prove that Cody Foster vice-president Diane Foster had purchased items from their Etsy shops and had them shipped directly to Cody Foster’s Valentine, Nebraska, headquarters. In addition, Lisa Congdon–the artist whose blog post alleging design piracy kicked off the recent maelstrom of controversy–had her designs copied by Cody Foster right down to her unique artistic signature. A lack of documentation is certainly not the issue here.