[The Halloween Lady]

Sadly this is not the first time this has happened to Halloween artists, nor will it be the last. I definitely do NOT approve this, but unfortunately it's almost impossible to stop. (and manufacturers know it!) Even when someone goes to the trouble to copyright or obtain a trademark for their item, people can usually get around it if they make minor changes to the original. Another issue that complicates this with "seasonal" or broad based based cultural type images is that unless an item is so so SOOOOOO different, one of a kind, or completely new, this stuff usually falls into the vast sinkhole of public domain thereby making it difficult to win cases based on violation of intellectual property rights, or "infringement". In other words no one owns clowns, so unless you've made a Vulcan clown with glowing dayglo blue skin, that does somthing never before seen by man, it would probably prove difficult to win. Even sadder yet, this becomes explimentially more difficult to win such cases when you're a small artist going up against the deep pockets of large companies and corporations. Heck... There have even been a few instances that I know of between fellow forum members each of whom are small business owners going up against each other.
I genuinely wish Jodi well.

Take a look at the links I have included. It shows some pretty blatant rip offs of items made by our friends and fellow Halloween artists.

http://shellhawksnest.blogspot.com/2014/08/another-year-another-halloween-artist.html

http://www.halloweenforum.com/general-halloween/134032-my-demon-horse-inflatable-lol.html