INTRODUCTION

Chinese Smartphone maker brand, Xiaomi faced an embarrassment recently as the company was caught copying artwork of artist Peter Tarka, famous for 3D Art. The image copied by Xiaomi was put on their Spanish website to promote their new range of home products. It is understood that Xiaomi has been investing heavily in the advertisement of their products to create a buzz in the market. They have been frequently opening new shops in different cities across the globe. 

ISSUE

 The Company has bluntly copied artwork by artist Peter Tarka as it could be seen from their website, the image stood almost identical to the one belonging to the artist. The company tweaked only a minor part of the artist's image, by replacing some elements with its products and increasing the saturation. The artwork which was copied by Xiaomi was meant to be used for the marketing purpose of L.G, a rival to Xiaomi. L.G on their part had provided due recognition to the artist and had they also paid the requisite amount of money for the artwork used by them.

 It was unethical & volition of the copyright or other original artwork by Xiaomi. The company didn't even provide due acknowledgment to the artist and neither he was paid any sort of amount in regard to the image copied by Xiaomi. It is a settled principle of law across the globe that "A person is authorized to have due to right against any of original artwork created by him, and it also gives him the right to authorize some other person to make use of his artwork. Without such authorization, if some other person uses original artwork or even makes identical copying of original work, then this amounts to a violation of the copyright of the artist who had created the original artwork.” The incident created quite a buzz on Twitter when artist Peter Tarka tweeted against Xiaomi stating the whole incident.