Companies who steal from artists!

I know we've ranted about this before but it keeps happening, so we're ranting about it again!
It drives us crazy to hear about an artist, no matter what medium they work in, who's art has been used without their permission by another artist or company to make a product to sell with out giving them credit for it or paying them commission for using their idea. I realize we function within a capitalist system and that competition and doing more with less is the name of the game but how about doing that will a little bit of integrity! Taking someones art and using it without them knowing is stealing, period. There's no rationalization or motivational corporate sound bite that can justify doing that. At that point you've reduced yourself to a low life bottom feeder!
What makes it easy to for big corporations to get away with this kind of thievery is that most artists don't have the financial resources to legally go after these larger corporations so there's no consequence for them doing it. And on top of that many consumers are unaware that what they are buying is a knock off and so they're making money off of it too with little investment.
So if you see a product that looks like it might be a knock off, please do the right thing and don't buy it and do what we can to keep the rights and money for these works of art in the right hand, the one's who created them!

Thanks for listening!

Xane and Dane