There has been many accounts of fraud surrounding the Instagram nail art community. Like most teenaged girls with an Instagram, I choose to follow multiple different nail art accounts. These artists spend most of their days meticulously working on their craft for the fact that they are entertaining and teaching their followers with what they do. I can see in the comment section that people everywhere are enjoying nail art Instagram accounts. I myself, see what these artists are doing and try to copy and teach myself how to paint my nails as beautifully as they do.
Lately however, there have been multiple companies, including Claire’s and Broadway Impress Nails, which have been stalking these very popular Instagram nail accounts and stealing their original designs to make money off of. They see which designs get a lot of attention and they manufacture them as press on nails or nail wraps for the public to purchase. This has raised many concerns throughout the nail art community and has caused the artists to become upset because their work is being stolen.
Things like this are happening more often now than ever before with the popularity of Instagram skyrocketing. It is easy for a big name company to take advantage of these artists and their craft.
The nail design community on Instagram has banded together to spread the word about what is happening with these big name companies. They say that they understand that they put their art out there on the internet to be admired and even copied by people, however, they don’t think it’s right for companies to be making money off of their designs without their consent. From my understanding, they want the companies to contact them before hand and let them know that they would like to use their talents and possibly even hire them as designers. Nothing can be done legally at this point because a lot of their work isn’t legally copyrighted.
I think this is an interesting problem that is happening and not many people are aware of what is going on. These are very talented individuals that are being taken advantage of by large corporate companies that know they can’t get in legal trouble for it. The scary thing is that many of the people who have found out their work has been stolen only realized it after hearing about it from someone else and doing some investigating of their own. After searching through the companies’ products is when they understand that this theft is occurring to more than just a few people. There might even be more than just the nail art community that is being affected by the theft. Just think of the other talented people who put their work on display that might be getting ripped off for their intellectual property. This isn’t right.
Alana Long
Resources:
Thecottonsugar’s Instagram Account
Badgirlnails’s Instagram Account
Thenailpolishedokie’s Instagram Account