Press release: Twisted Vacancy's right of reply
Regarding the coverage of the previous article entitled "When Crypto and Physical Arts Collide “published on March 10, 2021, hereby The Finery Report apologize to the Twisted Vacancy for the inconvenience concerned in the article. With this The Finery Report fulfills the principle of reporting that is balanced with publish rights to reply from Twisted Vacancy.
BE IT ACKNOWLEDGED, That We, Reinard Kristi SH, et al, Advocates from the Law Office of Ramsudin Manullang Lawyers, do hereby act on behalf of our client, Twisted Vacancy, wants to use the Right of reply.
As an online article published on March 10th 2021, by The Finery Report entitled " When Crypto and Physical Arts Collide". The content of the article and content uploaded by The Finery Report on its Instagram with caption “APAKAH INI PLAGIAT?” [Referring to the news article] with more than 11,000 likers as if they were judging Twisted Vacancy as the party who deliberately committed act of plagiarism.
It is too obvious that the news was compiled and not delivered in a comprehensive context, not equal, no information checking and contained a judgmental opinion. This news clearly caused a loss for Twisted Vacancy, which until now there has been no Court Decision stating that Twisted Vacancy convicted any act of plagiarism.
First, regarding the title of the article, the author states that “crypto art " and " physical art” collided. According to Twisted Vacancy, these two art mediums are different but seem to be in the process of assimilation, so it is not appropriate to say that they were collided. Otherwise, the process of creating those art is merge into a new method of work.
Second, about 20 reports mentioned by The Finery Report in the opening paragraph of the article is not transparent because it is not clearly stated where and by whom the reports were originated. Was it from similar artists or society?
Third, regarding the Twisted Vacancy itself. In the article, it was written that Twisted Vacancy consists of 28 members with the basic " Tech guy " who understands software with no one has an artistic background (Paragraph 5 and Paragraph 8). Meanwhile, according to him, Twisted Vacancy only consists of one person [activator] since the beginning he penetrated into the crypto art world, while at a certain point he hired 28 contributors to involved in building asset banks for a big project launched by Twisted Vacancy using several protocols in the blockchain ecosystem with the vision “Can artists live forever and work in the blockchain ecosystem?" Which was not explained by The Finery Report. Therefore, it is wrong if Twisted Vacancy is considered as a group of people or ordinary collective movements that deliberately commit acts of stealing and plagiarism in order to reap economic benefits.
Fourth, regarding the opinion of The Finery Report in paragraph 5 of the article states that “M does not produce elements of his work in the first place. He searches all elements from the Internet." This certainly has the potential to lead to misinterpretation in society. Therefore, in the context, Twisted Vacancy describes variations in the developing its bank assets and does not necessarily seek all elements from the internet, moreover, taking visual elements from other people's work.
That paragraph 7 of the article is written:
"Actually, it’s similar to collages, but technically, collages have plenty of elements that cannot be duplicated by others. We use outline, not shading because it’s easier to create artwork. As for colour, we have our own process too. There is never a Twisted Vacancy colour [scheme]. It is the master swatch from our files. We have several different tones of red colour, different tones of blue."
This paragraph refers to a discussion of how the work will be applied to a large Twisted Vacancy project. According to him, prior to starting a broader vision in his big project, he first learned how to draw and produce works, then he involved the contributors.
Furthermore, regarding the sentence in Paragraph 11 that states “I don’t see how it’s similar. The hair is different, the blue is different. How to explain that our identity will not be mistaken for Ardneks’, this is Twisted Vacancy" which will be assumed as a "statement" of Twisted Vacancy. While In fact, according to him, the sentence was a "question" [invitation to discussion] from Twisted Vacancy to The Finery Report during the interview. Twisted Vacancy wanted to show respect for The Finery Report, which is considered as a party that has a better understanding of art. With this erroneous writing, it made Twisted Vacancy seem to be defending itself, even though he actually asked about The Finery Report's views regarding the issue of plagiarism. Twisted Vacancy had the time also to explain the function of the NFT which can become an identity for every artist because each token produced is unique.
In addition, Twisted Vacancy is also questioning The Finery Report's actions that did not include other Twisted Vacancy artworks in the article, which led to the public's view that all of Twisted Vacancy's works departed from Kendra's works [because they were compared by The Finery Report]. In fact, he admits that Twisted Vacancy has produced many works and if examined further, his works are not only tied to one particular style of art. Twisted Vacancy also makes animation as a medium. So, there is no intention of Twisted Vacancy to commit visual identity theft, plagiarism, moreover stealing someone's work completely.
Twisted Vacancy also had already done a research the provisions in Legislation No. 28 of 2014 concerning Copyright, which should be considered as a Twisted Vacancy effort to maintain a moral and ethical code because there is a legal vacuum relating to visual art works. Responding to this problem, Twisted Vacancy has taken preventive steps by evaluating the asset banks that will be uses for the next big project, and ensuring that there are no assets taken from other people’s work so that this issue will not be repeated in the future.