Elon Musk drawn into farting unicorn dispute with potter

[Gutter Monkey]

Tom Edwards, a Colorado potter, was thrilled when Elon Musk tweeted a photo of one of his original mugs featuring his cartoon drawing of a unicorn farting electricity. The Tesla CEO called it “maybe my favorite mug ever” in a February 2017 post – leading to a bump in sales from around the world.

Edwards was surprised however, when, a month later, Musk tweeted a copy of his cartoon image to promote Tesla’s new “sketch pad” feature, which allows drivers to draw on a touchscreen. Multiple news articles inaccurately reported that Musk was the one who created and drew the cartoon.

The 61-year-old artist was going to let it go until he learned the image was also appearing in Tesla’s operating system as a small icon – and that the company had even used it in a Christmas card.

https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...on-tom-edwards

It's the usual story of a businessman ripping off an artist and complaining that the "exposure" should have been sufficient reward, but really I mostly posted it because of the article's title.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Musk is such an asshole.

[Esprise Me]

Seriously. Why not just license the image if you like it so much? The artist seems like a reasonable guy, and I'm pretty sure Musk has more money than God.

[crocoduck_hunter]

Exactly. It would have been easy to go to the artist and offer a fair price for his work. Instead, Musk just took it and is actively resisting paying any compensation. Typical entitled rich person behavior.

[ChasFink]

Even if Musk thought it was something in the public domain - not a totally unreasonable assumption considering Edwards' laid back attitude and the fact that it's not actually Edwards' art but a copy or derivative work - now that he knows it isn't, it should be obvious they could work out some licensing deal that would be a drop in the bucket for Tesla.

[BoKu]

This is just the latest of a long history of shady deals that Tesla sweeps under the rug.

http://extras.mercurynews.com/silico...mported-labor/

[GenYus234]

I'm confused. Is the image that Musk Tweeted and used elsewhere a different (but similar) drawing of Edwards or is it an image that Musk or one of his people drew based on Edwards' drawing?

[erwins]

It sounded to me like Musk tweeted a picture of the mug, and then later tweeted a hand drawn copy of the picture on the mug, and then a small copy was also incorporated into the tablet interface.

[ChasFink]

Originally Posted by erwins

It sounded to me like Musk tweeted a picture of the mug, and then later tweeted a hand drawn copy of the picture on the mug, and then a small copy was also incorporated into the tablet interface.

That's certainly what I saw. The image Musk said was "Made today on Tesla sketch pad" is not the one on the mug but clearly based on it, using the same elements - unicorn, rainbow, muffin-shaped fart, car with funnel on the end of a hose, smiley faces - in the same colors in the same general composition.

[Psihala]

The Colorado potter who hired a lawyer to take on Tesla co-founder and CEO, Elon Musk, has reached a settlement with the multi-billionaire.

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/07/...ent-elon-musk/

[ganzfeld]

I knew Potter would win but wasn't expecting it to end before the last horcrux was destroyed.