Fashion label H&M and e-commerce giant Myntra have come under scanner for plagiarising their latest commercial from a Russian artist Karman Verdi.
As a part of their Diwali campaign, Myntra collaborated with H&M and launched an advertisement starring Shobita Dhulipala, Vikrant Massey, Tamannaah Bhatia, Arjun Mathur, Radhika Madan and Karan Tacker among others.
The actors have been divided into couples – Shobita and Arjun dancing in their apartment, Radhika and Karan interacting from their respective balconies, and Tamannaah and Vikrant on a virtual date.
However, the Vikrant-Tamannaah part seems to be a recreated version from Verdi’s artwork.
Verdi pointed out that the ad features a lot of similarities including the flower arrangement, and candles.
Verdi, who has over 93K followers on Instagram took to the social media platform and wrote”
“How did H&M steal my project idea? Have you ever had a favourite photo? This spring, I showed everyone how deep a pandemic can be for each of us. Everyone liked this multi-layered story so much that people made me very famous overnight.
But this story has a dark side. Not so long ago this idea was taken away from me. Indian @hm released a commercial AD, where the eye-catching main frame was my idea copied almost 1 by 1.
For several days now, my people and I have been trying to call @Myntra and @HM to answer, but they chose the path of ignore, as if I was not even worthy of their attention.
Is it okay to live in the modern world and not be able to defend against big business? Is it cool when even public condemnation of an act does not affect the situation in any way? In other words, the job of any of us can simply be taken away because these people simply have a lot more fame and money?
My goal is to achieve justice. I want to show everyone that together we can change these rules. Please help me with this. Tell this story to all your friends, share this problem with the media in your country. Write to your favourite bloggers about it or send this post to them in Direct.”
Verdi told News18 that none of the companies making this advertisement contacted him for permission. "It's just, my idea was simply taken away from me without even asking for permission," he said.
Meanwhile, a spokesperson from H&M statement that the ad’s visual depiction was built upon this “commonly used concept”, adding that the similarities are “purely circumstantial.”
