if you’re unfamiliar with the situation, read this to catch yourself up.

in olden times, if you wanted to take on a giant corporation, “punch them in the virtual face” was not among your possible courses of action. you could resign yourself to it, or engage in a legal battle against their legions of lawyers, as did robert kearns, whose story was depicted in the movie “flash of genius.” kearns did win that battle, but at what cost? the cost of his marriage, of meaningful relationship with his children, of years and years of his life.

imagine that what happened to stevie happened in 1950whatever. who could she tell? her friends? maybe go to court like kearns? but it happened in 2011. and in 2011, we have the internet, a very mature and powerful internet. now, there is a debate about whether stevie was ripped-off or whether her idea is too generic to be have copyrights. but the answer to that question is somewhat irrelevant, because regardless of it, this whole situation has actually ended up not just neutral for stevie, but positive. on her etsy page she states, “orders will take a bit longer due to the overwhelming response to urban outfitters!” had urban outfitters not taken her idea, or at least come up with a very similar one, stevie would actually be selling less of her wares than she is right now.

and as a side note, this is not intended to be a “bash giant corporations” post. there are awesome big corporations out there (like white castle, whom you all know we love, and who were able to help us via the power of the internet) that support smaller business and entrepreneurs, and there are sleezy ones, and urban outfitters seems to have this reputation right now. there are also fine, upstanding entrepreneurs and small businesspersons and there are very sleezy ones too. my intention is to say that the internet is your friend. your powerful powerful friend. if your idea is good enough and you are active in promoting it, the internet will make it work.

go internet.