This morning we received an interesting email
from Rebecca, asking us for our opinion on an ethical quandry she is facing.
Rather than just give her our opinion, we thought we’d reach out to all of you
to get your thoughts as well. Send us an email to woostercollective@hotmail.com
and we’ll post as many responses as we can…

Here’s Rebecca:
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“I’ve been discussing this issue with a friend of mine, and she
suggested I write to you to ask your opinion.

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/>I’ve started a record label primarily for the purpose of releasing my own
band’s recordings, but I suppose in the future we might release the work of a
few other bands as well. It’s a tiny label (we’re only pressing 500 copies of
the first CD). I asked my friend if she could draw me a logo for the label, she
said sure and asked me to send her some drawings along the lines of what I was
thinking, so she could get an idea of what I was looking for. In the process of
looking for drawings, I stumbled across a photograph I took of some graffiti on
a wall outside of an arts festival in Washington, DC in 2002. This little piece
of graffiti would work perfectly as a logo for the label.

The problem
is that I have no idea who the artist was, so I wouldn’t know who to
thank/credit/ask permission from. At the same time, it was graffiti, not a
painting for sale.

Is it morally reprehensible to even think about
doing what I’m thinking about doing? If you tell me yes, I’ll nix the idea and
continue to nag my friend about giving me an original drawing.”

You
thoughts?  Send to woostercollective@hotmail.com