Chinese website pulls pilfered paintings

PATRICK BRETHOUR
Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- A Chinese website selling cut-rate versions of thousands of original works of art -- including those of Canadian artists -- has abruptly yanked much of its purloined inventory offline.

The Globe and Mail reported yesterday on chinaoilpaintingwholesale.com, which had been selling discount copies of thousands of paintings from Western artists, including 64 works from Mike Svob of Surrey.

Hand-painted copies of those works were being sold at a fraction of the price of the originals; Mr. Svob's East Side Snowfall is listed for sale at $1,970 in Canada, but a copy could be purchased for as little as $11.70 (U.S.).

But wholesale buyers of low-cost art needed to act quickly. By early yesterday, many of the images of paintings on the Chinese website had been deleted, and replaced with this message: "Reserve. copy right problem."

All of Mr. Svob's paintings were no longer for sale, something that the artist greeted with tentative optimism. "That's good news," he said. "Hopefully, it will stick for a while."

Although the company uses the Web to take orders, the copying process is low-tech. Photo images of the paintings are copied from across the Internet, and then placed into a searchable database. Once an order is placed, those downloaded images are used as a guide for a Chinese artist to paint the copy by hand.

The website is only a few days old, but the company that owns it, D&L Art Ltd., has been operating for several years, Ling Lin, an employee of the Hong Kong firm said on Thursday.

She said the database of the images of paintings had been gathered several years ago, and her company didn't have time to determine which were copyrighted before launching its online business this month.

However, Mr. Svob said the image of at least one of his paintings had been online for only a few weeks, meaning it must have been copied recently.

The company could not be reached for comment yesterday. But after being contacted by The Globe on Thursday, Ms. Lin said her company would quickly remove any images that were copyrighted.

Mr. Svob sees the news that his work is off the site as a brief reprieve. "I have the feeling it will pop up somewhere else."