In our third installment of Making It Work, The Verge takes a look at how creators and small businesses are dealing with familiar issues: imitations, copycats, and ripoffs. It’s an age-old challenge that has only gotten bigger as artists rely on online platforms to promote and distribute their work.
Making It Work 2022
How creators and businesses are overcoming imitators to thrive online
Illustration by Claudia Chinyere Akole
From fashion giants stealing from an independent designer to illustrators finding their work for sale on an unknown marketplace, here are the many ways creators are contending with a problem that keeps popping up in unexpected places.
Keycap clones are readily available, affordable, and shameless
Jon Porter
Online sales gave Gee’s Bend quilters control over their work
Alexandra Marvar
So artists are joining together to fight back
Harrison Jacobs
Service resellers find cheap labor on freelancer platforms like Fiverr, and flip services like graphic design or copywriting for profit
Mia Sato
A law meant to protect Indigenous art might just be lip service
Chantal Flores
‘There are all sorts of obstacles that are thrown up in front of artists’
Kim Lyons
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery — and the most profitable way to make a mobile game
Kevin Nguyen
Designers struggle with fast fashion copying their time-consuming creations
Mansee Khurana
Keycap clones are readily available, affordable, and shameless
Jon Porter
Online sales gave Gee’s Bend quilters control over their work
Alexandra Marvar
So artists are joining together to fight back
Harrison Jacobs
Service resellers find cheap labor on freelancer platforms like Fiverr, and flip services like graphic design or copywriting for profit
Mia Sato
A law meant to protect Indigenous art might just be lip service
Chantal Flores
‘There are all sorts of obstacles that are thrown up in front of artists’
Kim Lyons
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery — and the most profitable way to make a mobile game
Kevin Nguyen
Designers struggle with fast fashion copying their time-consuming creations
Mansee Khurana