Life surely ain’t no Pony Ranch
Somewhat in 2003 fellow street artist Corto made me weep with his über-kitschy poster stating that Life ain’t no Pony Ranch (in German: "Das Leben ist kein Ponyhof").
In that year I also saw stickers and stencils with this motif, but some time later he seems to have stopped using the image. To my surprise I recently discovered the image once again: on a flea market in Berlin (Mauerpark). Here the image was sold printed on canvas (awfully coloured and the signature in the lower right erased) in the company of other Rip-offs from the likes of Gould, Boxi, Miss Van and others.
To add insult to injury, the sales woman confidentially said, that she had a copyright for all the images she sold for she had bought a license for them from online stock image broker fotolia.com
Besides German copyright laws forbid such nonsense, I’m kinda pissed off: I understand every artist who sells his own work in order to make a living, but this is wrong in oh so many ways: Not only is there somebody who earns money by selling other peoples images without adding any own artistic value, he even pays somebody else for it who simply claims copyright of the originally non-commercial art via the click of a camera.
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Update
The Pony rides again! Apparently some (the same?) person has produced postcards of the Pony Ranch image and is selling them directly to design- and tourist-shops in Berlin e.g. Mein Heimat Laden. Again the original signature was erased but for being such an great and contact-worthy artist an e-mail-address can be found on the card’s backside: [email protected]
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Update II
Being told, that the postcard is a rip-off, the owners of the Heimat-Laden said that they will take the card from their assortment – after selling the remaining cards in order to avoid a loss
Note to self: If ever starting a career as a fence and end up cought by the cops, go with that line!