Quote Originally Posted by Tieri View Post
Ryan, I feel as though if you actually think that the question here becomes "Are we allowed to create tails based on fish someone has already done" then the entire point of this mess has flown so far over your head that the crew of the ISS just looked out the window and went "What the hell was that?"

Multiple designers and makers have all made tails based off of the same fish. We've seen this with Merbellas and Finfolk making Peacock Mantis Shrimp tails; Merbellas and Moo making lionfish tails, and I've lost count of how many people have designed and/or made tails based off of the Mandarin fish.

Nobody gives a damn whether two makers make a tail based off the same fish; it's nature, there's no copyright, yadda-yadda. You know why? Because each artist has their own interpretation of how to transfer details like this from one medium to another. If you'd bothered to read my analysis on Page 2 at all, you would have seen where I pointed out all of the very specific liberties that Finfolk chose for their Blue Tang tail to keep it true to the fish while still making it unique and their own; this included the addition of specific markings and colors that aren't present on the fish itself.

Your designer (Who I'm now intrigued about thanks to the intentionally vague distancing language you used when addressing their being "reprimanded") took ALL of these specific, unique twists to the design and ripped it off almost line. For. Line. And that's what people have a problem with.

Nobody's upset that you wanted to do a Blue Tang tail; they're upset because your designer couldn't be assed to do their flippin' job and plagiarized someone else's work. In artistic industries like this? That becomes a DANGEROUS liability for your company and people get fired INSTANTLY for that crap-- As your designer should have been.

And now, because of your employee choosing to steal someone else's design? Everything else your company produces is open to suspicion. Even if you didn't copy the Lotus design, the Blue Tang incident destroys a lot of your credibility, because to the outsider you've actively promoted stolen work once; who's to say you aren't doing it again?

If you want Swimtails to succeed, you need to learn to handle situations like this appropriately and as professionally as possible; which I personally feel you kind of dropped the ball on.
The Blue Tang incident was a miscommuncation and a mistake, We did have to terminate our designers employment becouse of this, although I ultimately take the blame and have spoken with the owners of FinFolk to make amends. Please consider that we never produced or sold any of those tails, it was purely a concept as many of our designs are at this stage.

I am trying to learn and grow from this experience. I am torn about the best way to avoid situations like the Lotus Tail. I designed that myself, so I know it was not inspired by the previous sketch.

Please let me know what you suggest Tieri, would sharing our new concepts within this community be a good idea to avoid this situation.?
I really appreciate your honest feedback