Blogging was a bit slow last week because my wife was on vacation and we were out doing stuff together. For a couple of years running, we’ve gone to the Bead&Button Show in Milwaukee. The deal is, she has fun at the convention, while I try to get some interesting pictures. Last year, I posted pictures of some of the sights along the way.
This year, I have a few shots from the convention, starting with this coiled-copper tarantula from Pattern Perfect.
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| Larger ImageCoiled-Copper Tarantula |
I don’t know much about beads, but I liked the bright cheerful look of these beads from Karen Moyer Glass.
I know that when the beads are complicated and artistic, like those above, the artists are concerned about people poaching their designs, so I ask permission before taking any pictures.
However, when the booth has hundreds of thousands of beads on display, like the Jane’s Fiber and Beads display at the top or like India Gems below, I don’t usually bother to get permission, because where’s the intellectual property in a big pile of beads, right?
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| Larger ImageIndia Gems |
Or so you’d think. Yet when I took the picture below, the booth operator came up to me and told me he doesn’t allow pictures of his booth. I chuckled, because I thought he was kidding—a few hundred vials of seed beads aren’t exactly a trade secret—but he told me he was serious.
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| Larger ImageSeed Beads |
I just walked away from him, because there was no point in arguing, but I was on pretty firm legal ground. It may be his booth, but whether I can take pictures of it is not up to him, it’s up to the show organizers. In this particular case, the show doesn’t have a photo policy, so once I bought a ticket, I could take pictures of whatever I wanted.
Even though I don’t need permission, I’ll usually ask anyway if I think the booth operator might be worried about theft of intellectual property, but it never occurred to me to ask permission to photograph these rows of seed beads. I mean, they’re just millions of tiny little colored beads. What secret could he have thought I’d be stealing by photographing them?
Dear Mark,
Please remove any images you may have taken of any part of our booth display from any public website.
You were asked nicely at the show to please not take images of our display. While we are not concerned about you personally, and while YOU may think they are just little vials of glass beads, we are very concered about the amount of theft we have experienced in this industry from people stealing both our style of display for shows, and for using images such as this one to promote their product line.
This is how we make our living. And it is how we have raised four children. It may seem slight or trite to you, but to us it is very important that we keep our identity at shows. Already we have had several other vendors attempt to sell and display the same or similar products as ours, and we have worked very hard to try to develop a unique look to our booth displays, and it is certainly not something that we want others coming along and copying.
Also, for your information, the way I found a link to this image posted on your blog was from a beader posting a link to it in direct reponse to another beader asking for information on how their local store could display their seed beads. Do you see where I am going with this?
We certainly cannot stop all those who cannot use their own imaginations to develop their own unique look, but I would also be remiss in protecting the best interests of my business if I didn’t try to stop those I know about.
So, again, I am asking you to please remove any images you may have of our booth display from any public website. My unique look at shows is all I have to set me apart from all the copycats who come along.
A little respect goes a long way.
Sincerely,
Beki Haley
Out On A Whim
Whimbeads.com