I am posting here to inform you of a shop owner who I
am currently dealing with right now, and she's a total
nightmare.
Her name is Laura Silva and she runs a Gothic Faery Store where she purchases prints from artist's and resells them for her own advantage.
[link]
[link]
[link]

An artist sold wholesale to her about a year ago. She recently
joined an artists forum and was informed of her
atrocious Better Business Bureau Record:

[link]

A lawsuit she lost against Josephine Wall for
illegally registering a web domain containing her name
and misrepresenting her art:

[link]

(they also did the same thing to Jessica Galbreth)

And her current fiasco, she posted in the forum
expressing her shock in reaction to her BBB record and the lawsuit,
and she has enclosed a listing of
her (Laura's) emails to her (Artist):

Email 1, she included the quote that she said on the
forum:

The Artist's quote in the forum:

"OMG - The Gothic Faery Store
bought a wholesale order of prints from me a year ago!
=>_<= I had NO idea this was going on!
Fortunately I had no trouble with her, except that she
demanded lower prices on my wholesale which I bended
to, but my goodness!
I've noticed the store closed lately.. and that my
prints didn't stay up there long. They made talk of
licensing me and to ask about it but when I did they
never replied back. Which I guess tells me that I'm
not as shoddy as I thought I was, that there was
something more going on.

Thats really scary. I'm glad my prints aren't up there
anymore. What other names has this person used? "

Laura's statement on the post:

Excuse me? I didnt demand anything. I simply asked if
you would sell me your prints at the same price you
were selling them on ebay. According to YOU, you had
NEVER wholesaled before I came along.

You know, its people like you that make things the way
they are on that forum. My site is still up by the
way. Always has been.

Unbelievable.


Artist's reply:

"Unbelievable?

Yes and I found the information on you was
unbeleivable too. I wondered why your store was closed
for so long. Plus, get your facts strait. I did not
sell through ebay price to you, you wanted three
dollars a print, which I gave to you because you
wanted them that cheap.

Apparently this matter worries you enough to go
through a site and bother me about it. Don't try to
'set me strait' on the matter, there are many people
there that I really trust and wouldn't do me wrong.

Besides, what does my 'first time wholesaling' have to
do with this? If would have known then what I know now
I would not have sold to you.

Please do not contact me again.

Jayde"

Her reply:

"This will be the last email I send.

1. My store has NEVER been closed in over 6 years.

2. You were right about the 3.00 a print. It's not
that I wanted them
"cheap" just wanted them at a wholesale price I could
keystone.

3. Obviously the forum "doesnt bother me that much"
since you had
written what you said about me a month ago and I didnt
read it til
last night. The only reason I even read it was because
a very good
customer sent me an email with a link to that forum
and thought I
might find it interesting since she had purchased one
of your prints
from me.

4. You keep misspelling the word "straight" (its not
"strait")

5. The reason I brought up "the first time
wholesaling" is because you
stated " she demanded lower prices on my wholesale
which I
bended to, but my goodness"...Not only did I not
"demand" anything,
you didn't have a wholesale price for your prints
because you had
never wholesaled them before, you needed the money up
front BEFORE the
prints were made because you didn't even have enough
money to buy the
paper, etc.

Enough of this childish behavior of yours. You will
never find out
the truth about what happened with Jessica and I...
It's really
nobody's business."




Oh yes, and she forgot about when she closed her store
for a very long time over the holidays.

So what does she do? She takes down all of the artist's prints
except one, and without her permission blurrs her
watermark and signature, which can be found here in a
screenshot she took before yahoo had the image removed:

[link]


She has since told Laura to either remove the image or
restore it's original, but has recieved no reply. She
has contacted yahoo concerning the matter and found out that Laura
still has the right to resell the image and even blur out the
watermarks AND her signature (which is a really crappy way to show
products in their store) and the print will be back up
soon until Laura sells them all. Laura is also being cute about the
situation by posting this at the bottom of her website:
[link] Pretty cute
huh? And then she goes on to post this in regard to an artist
finding out she is selling her prints without the actual artist's
permission, who turns out to be VERY popular, and this angers a LOT
of her fans. So she posts this soon after the above screenshot:
[link] And then soon
afterwards removes the DA comment:
[link] But no worries,
[link] hmmmm something a
little fishy goin on here perhaps?

Laura also has an e-bay ID gothic*faery*store, if she
approaches you for anything please do not correspond
with her.

You can read more about Laura's dealings here:

[link]


and furthermore there is a private post from
enchantedartists.com which tells of the troubles
people have had with her, and there are many! If you
want to read them just go here:
[link]

We urge you to copy this post and send it to everyone
you think is important when it comes to artist's
rights and dealing with this shop, especially to
artists of fantasy/gothic genres. We Also urge that you post this in public, websites around the world.

BRING HER DOWN!!! RAAAAAWRRRRRRRRRR!

This woman is a nightmare to deal with, is very rude,
and once you are on her bad side treats you like you
are beneath her. She preys on people who don't fully
understand laws concerning the dealings of artwork,
copyright, trademark, etc, and that is why she is
still in business. She has caused a lot of artists a
lot of grief, as well as people who buy from her
store. She has assumed many different shop names and
ebay ID's.

BRING HER DOWN!!!RAAAAAWRRRRRRRRRR!

The truth is not slander! Spread the word!
BRING HER DOWN!!!RAAAAAWRRRRRRRRRR!

****update***

And to add further insult to Lara's situation, Laura has decided to put an image of Lara's work on the front page of her shop!

[link]

What a NASTY thing to do after already being so rude to Lara in the first place!

Also, after speaking with Jessica Galbreth, we are being allowed to publicly post another piece of factual information to further prove the dealings of Laura Silva:

"Laura Silva still owes me money for a print I dropshipped for her over two years ago. She claimed to have been having personal problems so I took pity on her and dropshipped a print directly to her customer with her agreeing to pay me for this asap...this was the first time I did business with her with no prepayment from her. Now, two years later, she still refuses to pay me for this print I sent her customer just to help her out. I have since learned my lesson and don't ship anything without prepayment in full." - Jessica Galbreth

And reportedly Laura Silva owes money to a few other very popular artists as well.

The truth is not slander! Spread the word!
BRING HER DOWN!!


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