Snapchat vs. Sara Lyons

The other day on Twitter, I saw a tweet from artist Sara M. Lyons complaining that Snapchat had ripped off one of her designs for their "Whatever Wednesday" snap filter. The tweet and those that followed had thousands of responses from people supporting Lyons and criticizing Snapchat for not giving credit where credit was due.

Over the next couple of days, a lot happened. Lyons' "Whatever Forever" pin (the artwork that she claimed had been plagiarized) sold out on her website. Many web publications picked up the story, posting about the feud between Lyons and Snapchat. The conflict also sparked countless threads on Twitter about the issue of artist compensation. And, eventually, Lyons tweeted that Snapchat had reached out to her to work something out, and thus the conflict was resolved.

First off, this brings up the question of artist compensation in the context of our ever growing media. Artists have been using sites like Etsy and Tumblr to promote their work, which turns out to be a double-edged sword. These sites make it easier for them to gain attention for their work, but they also make it harder to protect it. If I wanted to steal an image from Lyons' site, it wouldn't be hard. Snapchat only got caught because they are so well-known. So as media offers artists more and more opportunities to get noticed for their work, it also means they might have to get credit and recognition when their work is used.

I was also fascinated by the role Twitter played in the conflict. The platform allowed Lyons to gain public support for her cause, forcing Snapchat to take notice. I was surprised they would bother to plagiarize an artist's work at all. With all the geofilters and facial recognition features, I'd assumed they had a special team whose sole job it was to design the filters. So why post something that was a clear tracing of another artist's work? Hopefully, they've learned their lesson from the debacle. The attention Lyons got on Twitter might also serve as a good warning to other media companies to take care not to step on any toes in their marketing strategies.