Big business should know better than to mess with Regretsy.
While Regretsy primarily exists to make fun of oddball crafts, it’s also a fierce proponent of the handmade community. So when artist Tori LeConsay asked the site to help her combat copyright infringement, it listened.
Back in 2009, the Atlanta-based artist drew a street-art love letter to her neighborhood—a sign that declared “You Look Nice Today,” punctuated with a heart.
However, this week LeConsay became aware of new H&M products that looked all too familiar.
At first, LeConsay said she had tried writing a complaint to H&M but received no acknowledgement of her concern. Instead, H&M published a vague status update on Facebook referencing the incident:
“We apologies if anyone should think we have copied, which has never been our intention and is not allowed,” wrote H&M in the since-deleted update, screen-capped by LeConsay.
Being an independent artist with limited resources, she then turned to Regretsy to raise awareness.
“I think it is pretty obvious what H&M have done. I hoped you wouldn’t mind sharing this with your readers,” she wrote.
Regretsy readers immediately bombarded the fashion chain’s Facebook wall with angry complaints. More than 100,000 people left complaints. Several readers referenced the most recent time Regretsy had put a corporation in its place by shaming PayPal for freezing funds for a Regretsy charity drive.
“Hey, H&M, you should really think about crediting Tori or pulling your ad campaign and apologizing. Just ask Paypal, us little guys can cost you a LOT of money if you ignore us,” wrote Jamie Diaz.
Within hours, H&M responded to the barrage of comments and nine hours later, it finessed its reply so there could be no misunderstanding:.
We are very sorry for our customer service team´s reply, it is very unfortunate and we apologize for it. We are in contact with Tori LaConsay and will continue the dialogue with her directly.
This swift turnaround demonstrates the power that Regretsy has over those who would have previously ignored independent artists. PayPal, and now H&M, have seen that when united, the online crafting community is a force to be reckoned with.
Photo by Regretsy