Would you really expect this from a huge company with endless resources at their fingertips? Well if you haven’t heard by now, Chevrolet Canada loves to cut corners by exploiting artists. Especially at this point in time, its shocking to see that they have no respect for the dedication and hard work that goes into being an artist. Just because we are artists doesn’t mean we work for free, it surely doesn’t mean our work has no value. Like any other job out there, there is a client, a contract and a handshake when everyone gets what they wanted. Seems pretty straight forward right?

Well clearly when Chevrolet Canada launched their national campaign for the Chevrolet Sonic that was created by MacLaren McCann and Cossette, they didn’t want to go the easy route! The campaign features images of graffiti that was created by numerous artists during the 2010 edition of the UNDER PRESSURE festival.

It is a complete lack of respect for every artist out there making a living through their passions. You couldn’t ask for anything more when you are able to support yourself and your family on your dreams and passions. But what happens when some huge corporation comes along and steals and exploits all that hard work, leaving you without any compensation? Well what would happen if you got your hours cut, or even worse, laid off from your office job? What’s for dinner tonight?

          

As it goes, Chevrolet Canada has retracted and erased any evidence of the promotional material they stole. And check this, they even took notice of their errors and only one artist has received a payment for damages concerning the intellectual property and copyright infringements to date. That still leaves 25 other artists unpaid for the use of their work in their campaign.

So what does Chevrolet Canada and MacLaren McCann and Cossette do next? Invest even more money to replace the campaign they took down and continue to exploit the graffiti community and all of its talented and passionate street artists! All of this could have been avoided had they just compensated the artists they straight up stole from in the first place. For such a huge corporation, you would at least expect a higher level of understanding and professionalism, no?

But get this, Chevrolet’s parent company based out of the United States continues to support and pay the graffiti and street artists involved in their promotion of the 2012 Sonic. It leaves you questioning what went so wrong during this transaction. Had they simply come forth to us and paid our artists for their work, we wouldn’t be at war…

We will never back down until there is justice for all the artists who have had their rights VIOLATED by Chevrolet Canada.