Last fall, before the peak Christmas ornament-buying season kicked off, some small crafters accused ornament wholesaler Cody Foster & Co. of stealing their designs and mass producing them. Those accusations led retailers carrying Cody Foster products to publicly drop them as a supplier. Now the company is suing one of those retailers, Urban Outfitters, and a few weeks ago added an ironic allegation to the suit: they claim that the retailer stole and mass-produced their designs for sale in its stores. [More]
cody foster & co.
Cody Foster & Co. Suing Urban Outfitters For Dropping Them As Supplier
By 3.18.14
During the peak Christmas ornament season, some independent artists and designers accused trinket wholesaler Cody Foster & Co. of poaching their designs with no compensation, maybe hoping that young artists just never go to gift shops or Anthropologie. Now the sleeping poncho-wearing polar bear has awoken, and is launching lawsuits from its den. [More]
Cody Foster Figures Craft Designs And Silence Are Worth About $650
By 3.5.14
Hey, remember Cody Foster, the wholesale vendor of adorable gifts and home goods that last year was accused of stealing designs from Etsy sellers? There’s news from one of the people who sued the company for infringement: the company offered to pay $650 to license the item, and for the artisan to keep quiet about it. [More]
Cody Foster & Co. Sends Cease And Desist Letter To Catalog Whistleblower
By 1.16.14
Nebraska-based trinket maker Cody Foster wholesales adorable items to boutiques, gift shops, and even bigger retailers like Anthropologie. Their catalog is only visible to their customers. One of those customers noticed a curious resemblance between items in the Cody Foster catalog and items made and sold by prominent (but not too prominent) artists and Etsy sellers. [More]
Cody Foster & Co. Speaks Up, Insists They Didn’t Steal Designs On Purpose
By 11.5.13
What’s a folk design and what’s an original design? The origin of a design like a rag doll is lost to memory, but should the specifics of a given doll’s design be the property of its designer? That’s the question at the core of the ongoing controversy over Nebraska-based holiday trinket maker Cody Foster and its items that strongly resemble those sold by independent artists. [More]
Anthropologie, Fab.com Publicly Drop Cody Foster & Co. As Supplier
By 10.24.13 — Updated: 3.18.14
Last week, an artist accused Nebraska-based tchotchke wholesaler Cody Foster & Co. of taking her paintings of cool jacket-wearing Nordic animals and turning them into three-dimensional Christmas ornaments of cool jacket-wearing Nordic animals. They had sort of forgotten to ask her first, or compensate her. Since then, retailers have been publicly cutting ties with Cody Foster & Co. [More]
Is Gift Wholesaler Cody Foster & Co. Responsible For Wholesale Ripoffs Of Indie Crafters?
By 10.17.13 — Updated: 10.18.13
You’ve probably never heard of Cody Foster & Company, even if you own items that came from them. They’re a wholesaler with no public-facing catalog. You have to be a small gift shop or large-ish chain like Anthropologie to even see their site. You can buy directly from the independent crafters and designers who claim that the company took their designs, mass-produced them in China, and sold them to retailers with no compensation to the original artists. [More]
