The Unalienable Rights to a Farting Unicorn @ Hyperallergic
We must, each of us, choose our time to stand and fight. To gaze, unflinching, at the forces that threaten us and say, “Not today, Goliath.”
For some, it is in defense of democracy and an American way of life that didn’t used to so closely resemble a science-fiction dystopia. For others, it is to protect the love, humanity, and kinship of this wacky human experiment into which we are all born. And for one brave Colorado-based ceramicist named Tom Edwards, it is in defense of an image of a farting unicorn that Tesla CEO and noted rich person Elon Musk has stolen, in a helpful reminder that “visionary” is sometimes a nice way of saying someone is borderline insane.
While the phrase “farting unicorn” makes this news — as reported by the Guardian — difficult to take seriously, it is ultimately a high-profile case of the kind of intellectual property theft by which artists are constantly plagued. Musk’s position is legally indefensible, considering a tweet in February of 2017 (since deleted), wherein he acknowledged one of the potter’s mugs, whose design featured the mythological creature powering an electric car by farting into a funnel leading to the gas tank. Musk identified the work as “maybe my favorite mug ever,” and the exposure led to a little boost in sales for Edwards.
Read more here…
Elon Musk’s Farting Unicorn Sketch Draws Ire of Artist Who Isn’t Credited