Sarah, Thank you so much for your work on this article - and great talking to you over email and twitter this past week! Although we didn't know each other to begin with, Sean, Yiying and I as well as all the other people like Nick Quarantano who coined the term 'FailWhale' and Hilary Talbot who made the 3D whale have all worked together. Even though only Sean, Yiying and I have actually spoken to each other before, there is a whole army of people collaborating at different levels of intensity to make a social object out of Yiying Lu's design. Since the story has so many players in different parts of the world someone needed to bring it all together, and analyze from a social media perspective....and I'd like to thank you very much for doing that. Did I mention that this is the first time in media history that an intellectual property holder from China is asking for the US to respect the rule of law? Just thought I'd throw that in, for those who are ready to close the book on the FailWhale story :) Tom - Tom via FriendFeed MT Plugin

So have I got this right? Hello Kitty's intellectual property rights were ignored, because they were corporate. But this artist Yiying Lu was small and unassuming, so her work was engulfed by "the community", which made sure the proceeds went to her. So the authorships "the community" respects depends on who the author is, and his/her size. What made the difference? What if it were a ten-person studio, an LLC? Does the creative work have to be a trademark to sell other stuff? Is that it? Where's the line? - Rick Wolff via FriendFeed MT Plugin