Beauty blogs have recently (in the past four months) and repeatedly had their content duplicated, without their permission, on paid-blogging site Luuux.com. Initially Luuux.com claimed that they would get to work screening content, putting up mechanisms for people to report content violations, et cetera. While it seemed a bit improbable that someone on the initial Luuux development team wouldn’t have seen this potential for IP theft and built in ways to avoid it, we all collectively gave Luuux a bit of space to clean things up.
Once upon a time, when I was a wee zygote and dinosaurs had only recently gone extinct, the first Christmas decorations would timidly poke their noses out of hiding over Thanksgiving weekend, and the whole aisles of paper, bows, decorations and toys would show up December 1st. Then when I was a pre-teen, everything showed up on Thanksgiving weekend. Then when I was driving, the line of introduction was pushed to mid-November. Now, you can catch the first bits of plastic holly coming out of hiding in late October (and in some places, they’ll start coyly hinting at Christmas decorations after Labor Day.) So the first weekend of November is not too soon to do a year-in-review post, is it? No. Onward.
This obviously doesn’t cover everything that happened this year. This only covers what made it onto my radar - and while I’m a beauty blogger, I’m not the hardcore omnivore or niche specialist….so I expect that this will be a very rapid skimming of events.
I started to write a response to a post over on MissChievous' blog about Luuux and some of their content providers...namely, the copyright thieves. My response started to get a little long, and I passed the point where I was commenting. I was getting a bit ranty. So I thought...maybe I should take the longer, rantier portion of this over to my sandbox, and not make a great big mess over in hers.
Remember the big brouhaha OPI had, shortly after they filed suit against etailers? In May 2010, Temptalia posted a promo photo of OPI’s fall 2010 collection, and OPI sent the site owner a cease-and-desist letter. Part of OPI’s argument against promo pics being online included the rationalization that if other retailers could see their collections, they’d duplicate OPI’s collections and get them to market faster, thus undercutting OPI’s profit potential. (Several other companies use the same rationale for asking sites to remove promo pics, and / or for not sending out promo materials.) This backfired on them in a rather singular fashion.
This was in late May 2010.
In -=early=- May 2010, nail bloggers began posting swatch pics of China Glaze’s Vintage Vixen collection. It included twelve colors, a mixture of glass-flecks, frosts, and a very few cremes. Well, hey, guess what!! Some of OPI’s Swiss colors are dupes or near-dupes of China Glaze colors….and the China Glaze colors cost less.
Aromaleigh is closing. That’s two major suppliers of my color fixes (and the vendor of my absolute favorite Holy Grail color corrector in the whole wide world…I’ve tried five vendors’ products and they simply did not measure up) that have closed this past year.
Go read the news, then place your final orders. Note that being able to place an order for a product does not mean that you will receive the product. But…if you’ve been holding off, grab stuff now while there’s a chance that it will still be in stock.
There’s a new wave of drama going on in indie-makeup-land. (There seem to always be waves of drama. As soon as one dies down, another rises into prominence.) I would almost love to sit down with a sociologist and hash this out, because on an aggregate level I’m sure it’s a fascinating study of human behavior, perceptions, definitions of relationships (including rights and responsibilities therein), and communication on both the one-to-one and the one-to-many level. However, since I can’t do that, I’d like to offer my own advice to anyone doing business with a small or microbusiness. Just a few things to keep in mind, if you will. (Many of these also apply to small and microbusiness owners - and having been one for nine years, having had to fire clients, having had to clearly establish boundaries and clearly define what I will and won’t do, and clearly outline what I intend to provide for my clients…I have an opinion. As does everyone, actually. But anyhoo, on to the post.)
I've given this quite a bit of thought, so that I could prepare a full response rationally rather than merely reacting. I initially thought about changing the site name and changing the URL. I spent two nights being physically ill at the abrupt treatment and legal threats. And then I reconsidered my actions.
The term sparklecrack is not, as of November 25 2009, registered with the US Trademark Office. It is not under copyright (it cannot be - words and short phrases cannot be copyrighted) and it is not legally protected by trademark at this time. I have been using the term included in the site's name and URL since January 16, 2009. I have always believed that the term is open to use by anyone and everyone, and have seen many other persons using the term. Despite "hopeful" claims by Mineral Madness that the term is a trademark of theirs, the term is not a registered trademark of anyone as of November 25 2009 and was not in use as any significant identifying portion (site name, subtitle, URL, forum name, user title, thread title, et cetera) as of November 23, 2009. I also don't think that anyone's going to confuse my site, which has never only covered one brand of mineral makeup and has never had a sizeable active forum, for JamesC's community which until November 24 2009 billed itself as "a Bare Escentuals fan site" and has a very active forum. Thus, I do not recognize JamesC's authority to insist that I stop using the domain or that I change my site name, or cease using the term in any fashion.
I encourage anyone else who wants to use the term "sparklecrack", or any variation thereof, to feel free to do so - don't hold back on my account. The term is not restricted to any one person, site, or group and never has been. Before January 2009, it was not used in the site name, URL, forum names, categories, user titles, or site areas anywhere at Mineral Madness, nor was it in use on any other makeup sites that I visited as a part of their name, URL, or tag line. Thus I did not see any barriers to naming my site Sparklecrack Central.
eyeshadow, shimmer, discontinued, Bare Escentuals, red, limited edition, cool, warm, brown, The SheSpace, purple, blue, Aromaleigh, green, sparkle, orange, yellow, lip color, sheen, nail color, neutral, matte, eyeliner, metallic, pearl, kit, grey, blush, Meow Cosmetics, one year eyecolor challenge, face color, Zoya, duochrome, collection, neutral-warm, creme, Everyday Minerals, Simply Naturals, Pure Luxe Cosmetics, sheer, white, MAC Cosmetics, black, warm-neutral, iridescent, cream shadow, brush, China Glaze, NYX Cosmetics, season: Summer, Morgana Cryptoria, neutral-cool, cool-warm, warm-cool, Shiro Cosmetics, Buxom, TKB Trading, season: Fall, Concrete Minerals, cool-neutral...
Sparklecrack Central is an individual's site. The author holds stock in no makeup companies, is officially affiliated with no forums or communities, and receives no renumeration for posts made here. Posts on this site are not commercial endorsements, but enthusiasm and a tiny bit of OCD. Product information contained on these pages is non-authoritative and provided for informational purposes only. All makeup company names, kit names, and color names are trademarks of their respective owners. All original site content, including photos, is free for non-commercial re-use with attribution (further details).
