Online marketplace’s Instagram post brings Central 23 to talks in copying dispute
Greetings creatives who believe their designs have been copied are being supported by online card marketplace Thortful and its Instagram post has persuaded publisher Central 23 to step up to address the issues.
Thortful released the post on Friday, 30 June, after the marketplace where artists and publishers upload their cards for sale was contacted by a number of its sellers because their designs appear to have been copied by Central 23.
The post garnered over 260 likes plus numerous comments from designers and publishers saying they have found copies of their work on the Central 23 website as well as on other selling platforms under the company’s name, others also contacted PG Buzz with similar information.
Having initially had no contact from Central 23, Thortful md Pip Heywood told PG Buzz yesterday, 6 July: “We’re happy to say Central 23 has now been in touch, challenged us on a few aspects of creators’ complaints, but showed really willing to understand what’s gone on and address any issues they identify.
“As such, we’ve removed the social media post because it’s served its purpose.”
Following this Central 23 – which bills itself as a “design studio based in London”, has Marcus Ereira as a co-founder and director and was incorporated on 27 July, 2016 – supplied PG Buzz with this statement: “Central 23 Limited is pleased to note that the damaging allegations of wilful copyright infringement that were made against us by a rival company online have been removed.
“We do not brief designers to copy the card designs of other companies and creators. Indeed, we routinely include in our communications with freelance designers, as a condition of their engagement by Central 23, a requirement that their work must not infringe the copyright of others. Members of our in-house team also have this in their employment contracts.
“We have already reviewed our operations to ensure best practice going forward.
“We are proud to have worked with and supported exceptional designers and of the reputation we have built.”
Explaining the background to the now-deleted Instagram post, Pip said: “A number of Thortful creators have been in touch with us advising that their designs had been mimicked by Central 23 and looking for some help. We were also advised independently by a designer for Central 23 that they were briefed directly by Central 23 to mimic Thortful bestsellers.
“We have the original dates that designs are uploaded on to Thortful – some of these go back as far as 2015 – and trust that our creators would be truthful about their copyright.
“Our legal team advise that we cannot enforce copyright on behalf of our creators so, instead, we have advised Thortful creators on social media to be vigilant and that we can provide them with support on how to effect a copyright claim should they wish to do so, if they believe their designs have been infringed.
“From our perspective, we have been approached by multiple creators, many of whom have been with Thortful for years with designs that have been selling on Thortful and other retailers for years. As we’re able to afford legal advice, we felt it was important to act on behalf of our creators.
“Our internal approach to plagiarism has tightened as our creator pool and card catalogue has grown and our business matured. If we’re approached with a copyright claim we firstly look to see whether the design in question is truly unique versus a popular or ubiquitous concept in the market. If it is a unique concept, we look at the original upload dates and we favour the original concept using the 5% rule of thumb (where only 5% of a work can be copied).”
Pip added that Thortful had “an overwhelming thumbs up from our creators to share with you their original designs against the Central 23 equivalents. By the 5% rule against a unique card concept, these are infringing copyright and our creators are adamant that they were the first concept to market.”
Among those who contacted PG Buzz was Paper Plane where co-founder Jack Thorpe said: “We were first made aware of Central 23 copying three of our cards back in 2019. They were very obviously ‘inspired’ by our designs – the main wording and font were identical, but they’d changed the colours and the punchline of the card.
“They posted the cards on Instagram a while later and we commented to say they were stolen from our idea – they simply ignored us and blocked our account.
“Last week we were alerted, via a post on Thortful’s Instagram account, that they had copied a card that is very personal to us, almost exactly. That was just a step too far for us. We have reported it on the platforms we found it for sale.”
And indie retailer Sean Austin, of Malvern’s Austin & Co, was surprised to receive an unsolicited box of sample cards from Central 23 just a couple of weeks ago.
He explained: “I did notice the similarity to designs by other publishers – I had it in mind to contact Jack at Paper Plane about one design in particular as it was a blatant copy. Over the years I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read to ‘keep calm’ while ‘drinking champagne and dancing on tables’ with unicorns or sloths, but that’s the very nature of being in a trend-driven industry.
“But what was sent to me was pure plagiarism with no attempt to hide the fact – Paper Plane’s Designed By Dog range is so unique I actually wondered if the design had been licensed. The box and its contents were soon recycled.”
Dean Morris told PG Buzz: “My Turn It Off card appeared in my catalogue for the first time in 2012 and it’s still a bestseller 10 years on – Central 23 weren’t even incorporated as a company until 2016.
“They’ve never approached me and normally I don’t report things like this because it’s too much negative energy and I believe in karma but I will report this one to Amazon as their square card version is sold on there.”
Go La La!’s co-owner Laura Kavanagh said: “They’ve ripped off one of our top-selling card captions. We’ve had loads of companies plagiarise it, but we don’t stop challenging.
“The son/daughter caption landed in my head one rainy afternoon while I was designing. I had Schitt’s Creek on the telly and I was reversing sentiments in my head and there it was. I laughed out loud.
“No permission has been granted to Central 23, they’ve been contacted informally on Instagram and the next step will be considerably less friendly.”
For Lucy Nicholson, owner at Lucy Maggie Designs, it was 2019 when her Shake Your Tits design – which she also sells through Moonpig – appeared for sale on Amazon under Central 23’s name and she showed PG Buzz the email in which the company admitted the design was “too similar” along with a Valentine’s one from Thortful they had identified and promised “you have my word that both of these designs will be removed from Amazon”.
“I asked them to destroy the stock they had and they refused,” Lucy said, “I got legal advice and they just stopped responding to me after that.”
Both designs are still for sale on Amazon four years later although Lucy added: “The Tits birthday one has been redesigned and they’ve changed up the wording a bit. The original was much more similar.”
For Bewilderbeest’s founder Iain Hamilton it’s his bestselling birthday card that he believes has been copied: “The image has been redrawn, though it has the exact same idea, wording, composition and characters, so it’s pretty clear that it’s a rip off. I have issued a takedown notice to Amazon.”
Liz Faulkner, co-owner at Jelly Armchair, said: “We’ve been hit by this, I haven’t fully investigated how many designs but I know our cheesy card is one of them. It’s obviously hideously blatant plagiarism and very frustrating. We will be pursuing this as we have the originals, an entire range surrounding it, and a whole lot of unique text and layout.”
Illustrator and designer Emily Nash said she is “disappointed and infuriated” to discover designs very close to her bestselling range are now for sale by Central 23, and she added: “The background colours, white text, placement of the animals, party hats and confetti are all so similar. I have evidence that I created mine back in 2017. I posted them on Instagram so they are date stamped, I also licensed them to U Studio, as well as having many wholesale stockists who can back me up.
Ohh Deer has also had issues, with md Mark Callaby explaining one incident: “They actually copied one of our journal specs that we used to make exclusively for a customer, Central 23 weren’t put off by anything legal. Our solicitor advised us to reach out to the customer directly and we did manage to get the outcome we wanted by doing it this way.
“Most people in the industry are respectful to each other and, normally, any issues of copyright are dealt with very easily by a quick and polite message as, most of the time, it’s an entirely honest mistake.”
And Mark Williams, co-owner at Brainbox Candy, added: “After reading the Thortful Instagram post, we noticed several plagiarised versions of our gift wraps online. We will be raising these cases with Amazon and any other retail or wholesale platforms that they’re being sold on. It’s sickening to see this and it’s total unacceptable.”
