Rag-trade giant Toppy has a new approach to settling intellectual property disputes. When local artist Lio Beardsley saw a blouse in the shop window of Weekend Workshop (Plaza Hollywood, Diamond Hill), a Toppy-owned store, she thought it was 'almost an exact copy' of an original illustration she had created two years earlier for Amoeba magazine.
She has a point. If you place her picture of a kissing couple on top of the picture on Toppy's blouse of a girl eating an ice cream, a number of features are remarkably similar. The girl's eye, beauty spot, the hair around the eye, her lips and outline of the face appear identical.
Toppy Company, which also manufactures clothes for Gap, DKNY and Ralph Lauren, see things differently.
Responding to Beardsley's suggestions of copyright infringement, Toppy spokesman Alan Wong replied: 'The two drawings are clearly different. Our drawing is not just different in details and structure from yours, it also presents a totally different mood. We have used monotone colour with subtle accent of the ice cream to impress a 'cool' feeling. To the contrary, your drawing comprises vivid colours emphasising the 'sizzling' effect of the kiss.'
This 'mood' defence is a new one on Beardsley (right), who wonders if it is just a case of a large company blowing hot and cold when it suits them.
