re: Taylor Swift uses New Orleans based artist's work without permission

quote:

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*Update, Dec. 14, 5:27 p.m.: Swift's PR team has issued a statement:

A fan has stated that she created the watercolor drawing of a fox, added some of Taylor's lyrics and signed the artwork as her own, posting it. Ms. Swift, believing it to be the fan's original work, reposted the fan's art, with her own comment, continuing the social media conversation. Ms. Burguieres did not contact Taylor's office, but she posted on social media her claim that the fan had used her drawing. We found that posting, accepted it at face value and immediately took down Taylor's posting of the fan art. At no time during these postings did Ms. Burguieres contact our office directly. Notwithstanding the huge publicity this has generated for Ms. Burguieres and her store, in early November Ms. Swift's office made a fair offer of payment well above a reasonable licensing fee for the short time that the fan art was posted online. The offer was for a payment to Ms Burguieres—there was no requirement of a contribution to any charity. Her lawyer further advised us that Ms. Burguieres chose to go after Taylor only and not against the woman who has admitted she used Ms. Burguieres' work as inspiration. Ms. Burguieres' lawyer acknowledged Ms. Swift's action was unintentional, but rejected the offer. She promised to get back to us with an explanation of why she felt Ms. Burguieres was entitled to more money, but she never did that and the next we heard was Ms Burguieres' new posting. We have tried on multiple occasions to address Ms. Burguieres' concerns, but these actions make it clear to us that this is just an unfortunate effort to extract more money and more publicity.

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He said, she said.

This infuriated me initially as well, but there is really no proof that this artist is telling the truth -- just like there is no proof Taylor's team is telling the truth. It is easy to attack the celebrity (I did it too), but I could also see this be the artist taking an easily fixable situation and blowing it up to gain publicity.