A visual artist accused Taylor Swift of unfair compensation for using a painting in her Instagram post without the painter's permission.
Last October 2014, the "Bad Blood" singer took a picture of a fan-made painting with lyrics from her "I Know Places" song and posted the picture on Instagram. The artist, Ally Burguieres, who created the painting learned that the Swift fan has imprinted her own signature on the painting which discredits Burguieres as the creator of the piece.
Ally Burguieres is an artist from New Orleans who created the fox image and sold prints of it for $45.
Burguieres contacted Swift's office and asked for the picture to be taken down. As of now, the picture has been deleted but the painter was not satisfied with the general response given to her by Swift's office.
The artist posted an open letter to Taylor Swift. Burguieres pointed out that Swift's team took their time and deleted the picture months after her complaint.
Burguieres alleges that the Swift management refused to give her credit for her artwork because Swift's endorsement was too high to even mention another artist's name.
Swift's team offered to Burguieres a four figure offer but only if she agrees to donate all of them to charity. "I've heard from a PR savvy friend that it is a way to manipulate people into accepting an offer-if the person doesn't accept, they'll look bad for denying a charity money and the case will be made that they're greedy and self-serving."
"I'm vegan and I guess they found that out, because they suggested an 'animal-related' charity. To me that was especially inappropriate and controlling. It seems to me like maybe they were trying to pit me against my passion, animal rights, and a community I'm a proud part of, animal charities," Burguieres writes on her open letter.
Taylor Swift has been known for upholding artist's rights with her moves of withholding her track on music streaming giants like Spotify and Apple Music because of unfair terms. This issue negates that advocacy.
"We have tried on multiple occasions to address Ms. Burguieres' concerns, but these actions make it clear to us that this is just an unfortunate effort to extract more money and more publicity," says Swift's spokesperson.
Burguieres responds to this statement by saying, "I have no desire to "go after" anyone, and I do not believe that me standing up for my basic creative rights should be a problem for an artist such as yourself."