What follows is a sleazy attempt by 3M's marketting division to steal Mr. Ableman and his co-workers idea and to appropriate their prank as a viral marketting attempt for 3M Post it Notes. Having initialy asked his permission for the rights to use the image, Ableman quoted his price - to which 3M marketting manager scoffed and remarked that the entire feat could be recreated for much less and offered to pay the severely reduced amount. Ableman re-offered a new slightly lowered amount, to which he heard no response from. Months later, Ableman was contacted by a user and congratulated on having seen a picture of his work in a retail department store.
It turns out 3M literally stole the idea, recreated with the budget they had mentioned earlier, and begun advertising it across several department stores. Not only did they outright steal the idea, and make no attempts to hide it from the author. But they tried to make their forged attempt resemble as closely as possible to the original prank - they literally copied all the decorations verbatim.
Here's Scott Ableman's attempt:
Original prank by Scott AblemanAnd here's the attempt by 3M:
3Ms copy of the PrankAs you can tell 3M has made a deliberate attempt to maintain a similar style, and color scheme. They could have covered the entire car in post-it notes, or used an entire rainbow spectrum of colors to use in designing the car, or even a huge assortment of patterns to style the car in. But they chose an almost exact replica of the style, right down to the dotted windows. This is one of the cases of major corporate theft. 3M should not only be ashamed but boycotted where possible for such flagrant disregard for stealing someone else's creativity.
