Yesterday, it was discovered that Urban Outfitters had yet again ripped off the work of an independent designer, this time profiting disproportionately on the designs, descriptive copy and love for New York of Etsy seller Stevie Koerner, AKA Truche. Today, the story reached Miley Cyrus, and provoked her well-trained righteous indignation: "Not only [does Urban Outfitters] steal from artists," she tweeted, "but every time you give them money you help finance a campaign against gay equality." She followed up by quoting Rick Santorum, the "paleolithic" anti-Gay Republican senator to whom the CEO of Urban Outfitters has donated over $13,000, a second reason for her rage. But now there's a twist: Koerner is hardly the first jewelry maker to have the idea of slapping a heart shape on the silhouette of a U.S. state.
The critical experts at Regretsy have traced the genealogy of such designs back several years before Koerner sold her first state necklace. Conjectures Regretsy writer Helen Killer, "[The design] seems like a logical progression from the I heart NY design, which I first remember seeing in the late 70′s." Wait, so the art world, the corporate world, and the internet have always been hotbeds of merciless appropriation? Sucks. When an idea jumps between two of those worlds, though, there's got to be some conversation and profit sharing, and that way people on both sides can get the best of both worlds.
And now, a clip of Miley (before she saw the light?):
