{"id":371,"date":"2009-03-29T21:27:18","date_gmt":"2009-03-30T04:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp\/2009\/03\/how_the_legal_system_critics_a\/"},"modified":"2009-03-29T21:27:18","modified_gmt":"2009-03-30T04:27:18","slug":"how_the_legal_system_critics_a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/2009\/03\/how_the_legal_system_critics_a.html","title":{"rendered":"How the legal system, the press and his nerve failed Dale Chihuly"},"content":{"rendered":"

In what must be one of the least satisfying copyright suits ever filed by a major artist, Dale Chihuly resolved his 14-month-long copyright dispute with glass entrepreneur Robert Kaindl more than two years ago. Earlier than that, glass art’s main man settled a similar suit with glass blower Bryan Rubino, who had worked for Chihuly for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

Both Rubino and Kaindl had counter sued. Suddenly, all suits were void, and terms of the settlements sealed. At the time, Chihuly said if it had it to do over, he wouldn’t.<\/p>\n

To sue or not to sue. That is the question. I’m not the kind of person who wants to sue somebody, and yet I did. I got kind of fed up.
\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What was he fed up with?<\/p>\n

I recently saw an ad for Kaindl in a luxury goods magazine. Here’s a piece from his Web site<\/a>, followed by one from Chihuly’s<\/a>. (Click on images to make them bigger.)<\/p>\n

\"Chandelier_amber.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>That’s not all. When Chihuly Inc. announced its suit, press coverage
\ntended to be sympathetic to the defendants (underdogs) rather than the
\nplantiff (top dog). <\/p>\n

The worst offender was the Seattle Times. After six months of digging, the paper produced a bloated and inconsequential three-part Chihuly series<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 It suggested grave wrongs were being uncovered at Chihuly Inc., maybe just over the hill of the next paragraph.<\/p>\n

\"M021B.jpg\"<\/a><\/span>As written by investigative reporter Susan Kelleher and art critic Sheila Farr, there was nothing but smoke over that hill. My favorite headline in the tell-all wannabe series was “Chihuly Benefits from his own Philanthropy.” Who doesn’t? <\/p>\n

Here’s how the ST framed the idea of the suit:<\/p>\n

Headline: Chihuly turns up heat on competing artists<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Subhead: He’s been guarding his artistic style for years, warning others not to copy shapes and techniques he claims as his. But some say he’s gone too far with a copyright lawsuit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That’s fair and balanced. Welcome to Seattle’s version of the no-spin zone.<\/p>\n

My Chihuly profile here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fashion designers are more or less resigned to knockoffs, but artists aren’t. After Jeff Koons floated a basketball in a half-filled fish tank and called it a sculpture in the early 1980s, nobody rushed to market with the same idea. But Chihuly straddles two worlds, both art and craft. Like fashion, craft gets copied. Who hasn’t seen an imitation Tiffany lamp or an imitation Charles Eames’ chair?<\/p>\n

What got lost in all this was art, but what chance does art have when conflict is on the table, along with juicy personal information and the opportunity to scorn a homegrown celebrity? None at all.<\/p>\n

Time to move on. Chihuly has. But as I held Kaindl’s ad in my hands, the injustice of the outcome rankled.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In what must be one of the least satisfying copyright suits ever filed by a major artist, Dale Chihuly resolved his 14-month-long copyright dispute with glass entrepreneur Robert Kaindl more than two years ago. Earlier than that, glass art’s main man settled a similar suit with glass blower Bryan Rubino, who had worked for Chihuly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}